VITUS

“to observe secret police activity in files
each projectile
a broadcast medium”

Armand’s writing is a testimony, recorded in shorter & longer texts, of “the megaphones of Prague”: based on observation of these mouthpieces-of-anything, with their past & lived present: a definition of the city by way of loudspeakers, of orders & distributors of all kinds of messages, in a combination of poetry, photography, installation, collage: also an evocation of what lies beneath the megaphone, its surroundings, but also its time, as well as our personal subjective time, the moment we pass under it, what mood is affected, & the sounds we imagine the megaphone to be making. The megaphone might be mute, but it still resonates with a spectral voice. And then there’s the systematic longitudinal record, covering 25 years, creating a specific mosaic of the city, captured by way of various approaches & syntaxes, commentaries & documentary impressions: a report on a psychogeography. Josef Straka

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A HOUSE FOR HANNE DARBOVEN EIN HAUS FÜR

“heimat / house / mat / haus / bau / dormir / a dor / mouse: / sleepwindow”

A HOUSE FOR HANNE DARBOVEN was originally commissioned as a libretto by the Czech composer Ian Mikyska as a tribute to the work of the late German artist. Two incomplete versions were previously published, in Alienist & Cordite. The libretto was first programmed at the Barbican School, London (in an arrangement by Ian Mikyska for soprano), & was performed by the author & David Vichnar at Venuše ve Švehlovce theatre, Prague, as part of the 2017 Prague Microfestival.

A HOUSE FOR HANNE DARBOVEN EIN HAUS FÜR (2021) / 18pp / download PDF

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