In their joint project, two Brno-based collectives, AVA and Move the City, aim to overcome the conventional, serialised experience in which the villa is presented in the established architectural and art history canon. To do so, they employ introspective sound and movement practices of attentional change that lead to a deepened perception of space without a straightforward visual or aesthetic connection to the villa. Their approach is based in particular on techniques of active listening (deep listening) and authentic movement.
The exhibition is the result of sound and movement research that explores the dialectics of the individual's inner psychological state and their interaction with the external stimuli of a space. The former involved active listening to the space of the villa and the collection of field recordings of the 'everyday mode of the villa', including sound interventions reflecting its spatial and material qualities. The second strand of the project involved movement sessions guided by the method of authentic movement with eyes closed and with a witness – either during routine tours or in the empty space of the villa. Architecture in this concept is not a source of direct inspiration for movement, nor a stage for performance, but an environment with certain characteristics where movement and the introspective and meditative experience associated with it take place.
The public now has the opportunity to experience this altered perception – these ruptures in everyday experience – vicariously through a film collage and four separate sound circuits. The aim is to create methods of being present in an urban and architectural space that can inspire everyone, without distinction.
Martin Bukáček, Petra Hlaváčková
Authors:
AVA collective
AVA is a group that has been organizing experiences with contemporary experimental music in unusual places on the Brno, Czech and Slovak music scene since 2010. Their hybrid character combines the potential of musical performance, rave, community participation, ritual and speculative attempts at utopian co-presence. The core members of the collective are active in the fields of sound art, music production, the use of field recordings, education and the popularization of active listening (deep listening), including in the Moving Spaces project. They include: Martin Bukáček (active under the alias Snediggen Snurssla), Marek Salamon, Simo Hakalisto, Andrej Nechaj and Matěj Kotouček.
Move the City
The project was created under the 4AM / Forum for Architecture and Media platform as an international festival of dance improvisation with a focus on movement in the city and dance interpretation of architectural space. It currently functions as a community laboratory for exploring the possibilities of altered experience through movement in (urban) space. Its founders are Petra Hlaváčková, Michaela Ondrašínová and Lucie Sendlerová.
Concept and sound intervention: Martin Bukáček and AVA Kolektiv (Martin Bukáček, Marek Salamon, Andrej Nechaj, Matěj Kotouček, Simo Hakalisto)
Concept and motion research: Petra Hlaváčková, Michaela Ondrašinová, Lucie Sendlerová, Roberta Štěpánková (Move the City – 4AM / Forum for Architecture and Media; facebook.com/movethecityfestival, forum4am.cz)
Film collage: Tomáš Hlaváček, Petra Hlaváčková
Participants in movement research: Patricie Pažická, Alice Šimečková, Petr Sič, Zdeněk Rosenberg, Petra Klementová
31 August 2021, 6:00 p.m. exhibition opening with a sound performance by AVA collective
1 September – 26 September 2021 exhibition of the results of sound and movement research on the technical floor of Villa Tugendhat (open Tue–Sun 10:00–17:30 for 50 CZK)
More information about the project here.
Authors of the concept and production of exhibitions: Barbora Benčíková, Ludmila Haasová, Neli Hejkalová, Lucie Valdhansová (Villa Tugendhat Study and Documentation Centre)
Curator: Neli Hejkalová
Graphic design: Atelier Zidlicky
Project photographer: Mizuki Nakeshu
The exhibition was prepared by the Tugendhat Study and Documentation Centre and was realized with financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
