About project
Disappearing ecosystems, biodiversity, and soundscapes. Their characteristic sound contours are increasingly blurred by technological noise. The problem of disappearing soundscapes has been addressed by researchers around the world since the 1960s.
However, our attention is directed to a local situation, to the landscape around Lipnice Castle in the heart of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. We find ourselves in Loukov, a formerly extinct village in the Highlands below the Melechov hill. For seven centuries, the sounds here, around the Church of St. Margaret, have symbolized the relationship between landscape and people. Towards the outside, we hear the church bell – a symbol of time and a carrier of religious and socio-cultural values. We also hear the organ – a musical instrument used in the liturgy. Inwards, we hear the sounds of the adjacent road, the sound of the Meziklasí stream, or the work of people in the adjacent fields. The soundscape around St. Margaret Church tells a story that has touched everyone here in the past and continues to touch everyone here today. To become more aware of the inherent acoustic nature of such a soundscape, we wonder how to capture, isolate, and listen to its sonorous existence. In order to do this, we attempt to transport it into a completely different space and set it in a different acoustic reality as a sonic monolith.
The space of the church is illuminated by a scenographic realization by Dragan Stojcevski originally created for the production of King Oedipus at the National Theatre. It is the final image representing the departure of the blinded king. The concept of the production itself confronted the ancient subject with Christian rituals and symbols as we know them today. Within the Signal Festival, the object takes on new connotations, but it does not lose its essential meaning. It is placed in front of the altar, temporarily borrowing the space of the church, becoming a new alternative representation of the Saviour. In addition to the symbolic level, it offers a new encounter with church architecture in dialogue with Michal Rataj’s sound installation.
The sound installation was created on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Czech Radio.
The artwork was created in collaboration with the Department of Composition of the Academy of Performing Arts in the framework of the project Sound Immersion of Public and Private Sound Space supported by the Institutional Support for the Long-term Conceptual Development of a Research Organization, granted by the Ministry of Education in 2022.
The sound installation is extended by four evening improvisational musical interventions, which take place between 20:00 and 22:00 →:
12 and 13 October OFFSCREEN Trio
Ivan Boreš – electric guitar
Michal Rataj – sound objects, surround sound, live electronics
Jan Trojan – soundboard, live electronics
Jiri Hodina j. h. – vocal
14 and 15 October Letters From Sounds
Michal Rataj – live electronics, piano
Oskar Török – trumpet, live electronics, piano
Concept and realization: Michal Rataj and Jan Trojan
Production: Hana Št’astná
Graphic score realisation: Tobiáš Horváth
Technical support: Jan Křeček, Pietro Nacca
Performers: Martin Debřička (saxophone), Štěpán Drtina (cello), Jan Dudešek (wind harp), Haštal Hapka (trombone), Michal Hrubý (bass clarinet), Jan Jirucha (tuba), Anežka Matoušková (vocal), Vít Nermut (violin), Mélusine de Pas (viola da gamba), Anna Romanovská Fliegerová (koto), Jan Rösner (bell), Petr Tichý (double bass), Jan Trojan (sounding brass, bell), Zdeněk Závodný (saxophones)
Photo: Petr Neubert
