Zvuky Prahy / Sounds of Prague

Sound from the event organized during the kinetic sound installation Inclined Plane by Ondřej Přibyl and Jan Záveský at the Baumann Gallery in Štěpánská Passage. Originally called the Merkur Passage, was built in 1938 according to a design by architect Eugen Rosenberg in the style of so called “emotional functionalism”. Exceptional architectural elements include a luxfer vault, a window, ceramic tiles and a medieval portal in the hall, which refers to the original U Hřebeckých House built in 1381. The passage is part of Ferdinand Baumann’s apartments and department store, after which the gallery, run for may years by Matouš Mědílek, is named. The installation in a long shop window consisted of a suspended metal rod with a groove in which a metal ball moves. Servomotors attached at both ends of the rod raise and lower it and the ball moves from one side to the other. During the event, the sound was captured by two microphones and amplified into the acoustics of the passage.

Ondřej Pribyl and Jan Záveský statement for this work:

“What do you want to say about something as ubiquitous and multi-layered as an inclined plane, or about other similar things? In general, it can probably be defined and described physically, but the fact that it would make sense to attempt some kind of interpretation seems completely odd to me. Apparently, we still suffer from a compulsive tendency to approach almost everything as a sign, namely something that means something, so we can somehow interpret it, or at least it is somehow steeped in the relationship between the signifier and the signified, for which we probably owe it to those captains of semiotics and semiology, Peirce and de Saussure. It's not fair to be angry with them for this, they probably can't be blamed for anything, it's just good to remember that some things, and perhaps even some works of art, are far above our wonderful system of signs, and any interpretation of them in the A means Y scheme will always be grossly simplistic, will only flatten, profane, and trivialize things, and in the end may even be unnecessary. What does a tree mean? Well..."

recording of the sound:
https://soundcloud.com/zvsx1/baumann_rec_edit_003-a

photo: Ondřej Přibyl