Fero Király & Eva Vozárová: Fonendoskop | Sound Topographies
Auditory search for an essence of a place
“It is important to understand whether we can register, maintain, and even love as many ways as possible to be part of the world.” – Bruno Latour.
Cities, villages, dwellings, administrative buildings, factories, shops, and infrastructure are creations of one of the animal species on this planet. In essence, they are no different from beaver dams, stork nests, or anthills. They are equally a part of nature, a natural expression of one animal species, its image, reflection, and also a medium from which much can be deduced. They have their own design, system, smell – and sound.
The prevailing narrative of Homo sapiens sapiens is the idea of our dominance and entitlement to separating ourselves from "the others." What do the places we create and by which we change the planet say about us and the context of our impact on Earth?
Fonendoskop (Slovak word for stethoscope) is a tool with a resonator used for examining a patient by listening. Our listening and examining object is a micro-place – an interior, a building, an anthropocentric structure, significant for its location, history, former or current function in the city – and its sounds, states, and relationships in which it operates. Our subject is the relationship between man and the (acoustic) environment that surrounds him. We listen, examine, diagnose, create a map, find a position, and try to recalibrate the vector in the context of acoustic ecology.
Fonendoskop is a part of Sound Topographies – a series of events with a simple aim to listen to the world and the sound landscape that forms its acoustic exoskeleton and to explore the relationship between man and the sound environment that surrounds him. To listen means to create space for new questions – and new answers. By listening, we study the acoustic manifestations of the landscape and its sound quality. We map the world, discover acoustic spaces, and find connections with various areas of natural and human sciences. We consider the direction towards sensing the shared world, linking environments and organisms, because the world we live in is an overlapping arrangement.
Bios
Fero Király is a musician. He focuses on interdisciplinary projects with an interest in digital technologies and their intersections with music. His projects overlap with performance, sound art, installations and interpretation of contemporary music. He collaborates with musicians, artists, performers, theater artists, visual artists (e.g. Bohuš and Monika Kubinskí, Petra Fornayová, Zuzana Žabková, Jakub Pišek, Lina Lapayete, Maja Osojnik, Hillary Jeffrey, Hauke Harder, Daniel Matej, Juraj Bartusz, Peter Machajdík, Eva Šušková a.i.). He is also involved in music education projects. He is a co-founder and artistic director of Cluster ensemble, with whom he has created projects for the Czech National Theater (2018, 2019) or the album Cluster ensemble plays Philip Glass published by Philip Glass’s record label Orange Mountain Music (2016).
Eva Vozárová is a dramaturge, performer, writer, and cultural manager. She is engaged in curatorial and authorial activities in the field of sound art and intermedia. She has collaborated with artists from the realm of contemporary music and visual arts, such as Fredrik Rasten, Hans P. Kjorstad, Fero Király, Tomáš Prištiak, Hauke Harder, Eva Šušková, and others. Currently, she is working on researching sound environments in urban settings. She has a degree in journalism.
