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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VAMPYR

VAMPYR / A Chronicle of Revenge, published 31.10.2020 by ALIENIST. Read an excerpt from Vampyr at Burning House Press, SELFFUCK magazine, ExPat Press & The Collidecope. Watch the trailer. Full PDF available HERE.

“The mirror is empty. Surely this is a sign? The error is too consistent & gigantic to be ignored. One moment, History is there, replete, like cinema. The next: Void. Where purpose was, now doubt, trepidation. Something must be to blame. We are not speaking of merely vulgar misunderstandings or an emotional ambivalence. Every disappearance can only be considered a murder, caused by a hidden hand. A crime of violent omission. These accusations demand an energy of response, not bands of superstitious dilettantes. The world is not a psychoneurotic disorder. Those still living have good reason not to feel safe from the revenges of the dead, even w/ a sea dividing them. Their taboos are as a mirror held up to a guilty conscience. Originally, all of the dead were Vampyrs. Yet we do not come from the past, but from the future.”

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