B PETRIFIED, tidal love

B PETRIFIED, tidal love

B PETRIFIED, tidal love

22. 7. — 19. 9. 2021

sound gallery IGLOO
Komensky Street No. 10
Jihlava
Curator: Miloš Vojtěchovský

The prophecy for the future is hidden in the substance - we need to listen, dwell deep inside in order to understand, to predict.Seemingly deaf darkness of the substance is potent with knowing.

The inspiration for the work is an enigmatic, radically poetic place — a fascinating modular stone configuration in the Pohorje primeval forest in Slovenia. Intimate cosmic dialogue evolves through several visits and blossomed in-between bodies ∞ spirits: space, atmosphere, river, stones, trees, ants, shadows, light, and a woman.

Strange other(s) connects through performative engagement. Motionless stone beings with their eternal insistence on a single pose emanate a tidal field, gently and persistently attracting moving life forms. Camera (sound, video, photo) records subtle oscillations between different entities through their performative cohabitation. Artistic practice is based on durational performance with an emphasis on the descending ∞ expanding perception field. Through extreme sensual receptiveness developing an awareness of presence.

B PETRIFIED, tidal love offers an immersion into the process of attunment. Sonically it invites into the intermediate (sub)sonic substrate of minerals and fluids. Performative location: Pohorje primeval forest, river Lobnica, Šumik waterfall.

OR poiesis alias Petra Kapš (1975 in Slovenia) is a sound artist and poet, she lives in Maribor. She combines the art of sound, radio, chrono-spatial poetry, poetic performance, text and reflection. In addition to sound ephemerality, she also focuses on corporeality. Her main means of expression is a word extended to the field of sonic poetry. She is interested in auditory memory and deep, physical time. By using (a)synchronous presence in the digital sphere she opens up the concept of intimate radio. She also works with the emptiness of the Internet listener's hearing. Her sounds / radio / books and works are localized moments of solitude.

 

http://orpoiesis.blogspot.com/

 

 

About stones, boulders and forest creatures

Near the border of Slovenia with Austria, the mountain river Lobnica flows into the valley of the river Dráva through the Pohorje forest. A wild and steep gorge at an altitude of about 1000 m above sea level with rocks covered with moss and two waterfalls is not easily accessible. The poet OR Poiesis returns to one of the local rock formations for several years and studies its infinitely slow metabolism. In Slovenian, she calls the almost immobile forest being "kamen" and with poetic association she connects it with the term “kami” - which in Siberian regions refers to a shaman. In Shinto, "kami" means shrine, the abode of spirits. In our landscapes, we would perhaps describe such a rock formation as a boulder - which is probably a Proto-Slavic word, the origin of which etymologists look somewhere far to the East, or in the times of the Celtic settlement of Central Europe. The term boulder often has an ambivalent meaning, which is perhaps due to its immobility, permanence, eternity: balwan is a boulder in Polish, but also a fool, a log, a sea wave, a cloud of smoke and a pagan god. In Russia bolván is a stump, in Bulgaria balván is a large stone, but also a heavy beam. In Polish, Ukrainian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Russian the root of the Proto-Slavic blvan reveals the links to pagan spirituality: in Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian and Croatian they called statuettes or other forms of a pagan god balvan.

 

In short, stones and boulders have long been associated with something spiritual, sacred, or heavy, motionless, not only in the ancient communities of the Slavs, but in fact wherever people and stones on the planet coexisted. Figuratively, we can complain that with the emergence of urban culture and civilization, we forgot about such archaic "magic of stones": the stones turned into dead inert matter in the hands of the architect and bricklayer in the construction of cities, walls, fortresses and paving. In 2017, the New Zealand government granted legal personality to the Whanganui River, giving it the opportunity to defend itself if anyone could prove that the River’s rights are at stake. The animistic paradigm of attributing subjectivity and sacredness to natural beings seems to be slowly but surely returning in various regions and cultures. Especially in places where the original, "primitive" communities and structures were not completely wiped out.

 

The activities of OR poiesis at the interface of music, sound art, poetry and performance have a deep and essential connection with nature, landscape and the sacred topology of places. She usually turns to rivers, valleys, trees, stones, rocks, because she knows that they speak to us with their liquid, watery, stony, airy tongues. We can learn those languages again and meet the non-human world, discover the understanding that we have almost lost due to our predatory intoxication by technology and noise. The theme of installation B PETRIFIED - a poetic, geological mode of a dialogue between human and place, which has its premiere in the Jihlava Gallery, follows on from her previous realizations The Golden WallsDoors to Paradise and KISETSU quarry, which the artist will introduce during the opening of the exhibition.

Miloš Vojtěchovský

The exhibition is over

ADMISSION

basic fee 20 CZK

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