Spell: Recognition

sound installation, 2018

electronic components, herbs, pot, table, paper, sound samples

Curated by Anna T.

The installation aims at creating moments of healing and recognition, focusing on non-binary people. The creative process started from a fascination with traditional Eastern-European magic based on whispered spells and properties of herbs. This project is part of an on-going investigation on queer as a methodology in sound-art, be it musical improvisation or performative composition. In this approach, Hołubowska explores not only queer as a methodology in designing sound experiments and what queer can sound like, but also creates collages from the ethnomusicological material, queer punk aesthetics, and D.I.Y electronics, exploring possible connections and tensions. These temporal–often dissonant–compositions reflect their understanding and experience of queer desire and queer embodiment as a series of fluid and polyphonic assemblages. Because space for queers and freaks in oral cultures was always limited, it is in traditional singing and magic that Hołubowska seeks new forms of expressing agency and ways of relating to the world. The sound installation employs the power of whispers, as a form of a well-wishing, empowering spells, and the magic properties of herbs to create a safer healing sonic space. The installation also deals with a queer approach to music composition by embracing randomness and collectivity by inviting the audience to compose the soundscape.

Opening: 25.05.2018 // 7 p.m.

Exhibition from 25.05. – 01.06.2018
opening hours by appointment

Finissage: 01.06.2018 // 7 p.m. // Closing Performance 8 p.m.

Where: Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory

                  Wallensteinstrasse 38 1200 Wien

Image credits:  Zosia Hołubowska