úúú: ENVIRONMENT II
John Grzinich (US/EE) – AudioSwarm (soundwalk)
Date: 06 June 2026
Start time: 7:00 PM
Venue: FOR MAAT Gallery, Trenčín
Admission: free
What is the relationship between people and the sounds of their environment? What happens when those sounds change? New artistic practices and forms emerging in recent decades within the field of sound art offer possible answers. One of them is the soundwalk, which places a walking and listening audience directly into the environment itself. At úúú: ENVIRONMENT II, the soundwalk by Estonia-based American artist John Grzinich invites listeners to tune into two environments that we rarely perceive in interaction with one another — the macro-world of us humans and the micro-world of the oldest sounding creatures on Earth: insects.
One of the starting points of acoustic ecology is the claim that the way an environment sounds can tell us a great deal about its condition. Environments are not passive containers, but rather invisible active processes. A performative essay by Eva Vozárová about a new sound that appeared in Bratislava’s summer soundscape a few years ago observes one such process — change.
John Grzinich (US/EE) – Audioswarm: Insectus
(participatory performance / soundwalk and discussion, 60 min, 2025)
Audioswarm: Insectus is an original sound composition inspired by and based on field recordings of insects. At the same time, it functions as a participatory soundwalk — a performative format of spatial sound diffusion that combines collective listening and interaction with the surrounding space in order to create a unified sounding body made up of all those present. Every participant becomes both listener and performer. All that is needed is a smartphone with a mobile web browser.
The performance is an invitation to listen to one another and to the environment around us. It shapes the audience into a swarm, drawing closer to insects and other creatures that gather in flocks or herds. The collective realization of the performance opens several key questions: What does it mean for humans to pay tribute to the oldest sounding beings on Earth? By what means can we embody the sonic and social character of insects? What role do we, as humans, play within the deep-time fabric of complex earthly ecologies?
John Grzinich (1970) is an audiovisual artist based in Estonia. In his work, he connects sound, performance, moving image, and site-specific installations in order to explore the perception of sound and space and to seek resonances between people and places. Recently, he has focused on reconsidering the anthropocentric worldview through performative and media-based works that combine earthly (natural) forces, expanded modes of listening, and participation.
Eva Vozárová (SK) – Revúca Bratislava: A Few Notes on a New Summer in the City
(performative essay, 30 min, 2025)
The quiet comfort of a newly built residential neighborhood near the city center was recently disrupted by a loud foreigner: the ash cicada. A species previously foreign to this latitude has established its first permanent colony here. The cicada’s cry has changed the sound of hot summer afternoons and become a signal of a new climatic reality. The lazy summers of the past are gone; extremes are arriving.
A chance acoustic discovery on one summer afternoon grew into a long-term relationship and fascination. It points to the connections between place, attention, and the stories we tell ourselves at a moment of climatic rupture. How did it get here, why did it come, and what does it mean — and for whom? The cicada as a source of wonder and a sound of early warning.
Eva Vozárová (1984) is a dramaturge, performer, researcher, and freelance cultural manager. She is engaged in curatorial and authorial work in the fields of sound art and intermedia. Together with musician Fero Király, she founded the artistic association ooo in 2020 (www.zdruzenie.ooo), which serves as their shared platform for various activities, especially in the areas of sound art, ecology, contemporary philosophy, and other urgent questions of the present. She co-founded and co-curates the annual event JAMA in memory of artist Milan Adamčiak (www.jama.ooo). She publishes in various art journals and, since 2023, has been conducting artistic research on acoustically interesting locations in Bratislava. She lives and works in Petržalka.
