HISS—2019-2020

Fieldwork, sonic essay, artist book


HISS is a piece commissioned for the exhibition The Earth / Current Way of Living in 2019, curated by Tereza Záchová, at Galerie Emila Filly, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic.

Ústí nad Labem is situated in the North Bohemian region, whose land has been severely transformed and contaminated by the continuous extraction of lignite and related industries. Here, the extraction process has been prioritized over the lives of people and ecosystems, leading to displacement, manipulation and loss of settlements, villages, water systems, habitats, and plant and animal lives.

I engaged with the land and the sonic environments by walking, sensing, listening, field recording and writing. I wanted to meet the land, to feel its natural and cultural stories while widening my sonic imagination. I walked through Bílina, Braňany, Černice, Duchcov, Jedovina, Lom u Mostu, Mariánské Radčice, Milada, Most, Osek, Roudníky, Trmice, Ústí nad Labem, Vršanská vyhlídka, and Vysoká Pec.

I invite and encourage the audience to feel and explore these places, to linger in and drift through this alternative time, sound, and light.






Løkken Verk

21.11.2020

The excursion to Løkken Verk was organized as an extension to my exhibition HISS at TEKS - Trondheim Electronic Arts Center in 2020, with the intention to bring the piece in relation with the local historical context of mining in Trøndelag. The guided tour through the former copper mine included a collective listening to the composition.





Artist book (A4, 56 pages, risograph print) designed by Kateřina Havelková. Sonic essay (27min, stereo); text, field recording & mix by Magdaléna Manderlová; with voices by Katherine Butcher and Alex Murray-Leslie.


In 2024, HISS was made into an animation video in collaboration with Kateřina Havelková, and took part in the Czech-Icelandic online artistic research project Regeneration.

The installation was exhibited at Numinous Beginnings (group exhibition), Lydgalleriet, Bergen, Norway (2020); Sound Occupations (group exhibition) at STIFF Film Festival, Rijeka, Croatia (2020); HISS (solo exhibition) at TEKS - Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre, Norway (2020); The Earth/Current Way of Living (group exhibition) at Galerie Emila Filly, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic (2019- 2020).

HISS (audio) was re-broadcasted at Radio Hopes and Dreams (2021), RUMMUR radio (2020), Radio Space by Borealis festival for experimental music (2020), and Girlmonster! at Radio Primavera Sound (2019).

HISS (text) was re-published at SOUNDEST issue 6 (2020) and Fusion Journal, Listening in the Anthropocene edition (2021).


Press
Landskapkomposisjoner by Artscene.no
Review by Meldal local paper


Images
Espen Gangvik and Olga Bushueava from TEKS - Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre, 2020; Jiří Dvořák from The Earth/Current Way of Living, 2019-2020, Galerie Emila Filly. Field photographs are courtesy of the artist. Photograps from Løkken Verk by Gard Aukrust.


The project was supported by Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Norsk kulturråd, Fond for lyd og bilde, Trondheim Komunne, TEKS, Orkla Industrimuseum and Regionale proskjektmidler for visuell kunst.