Variations on a Theme by Joe Jones
KINETIC OBJECTS by TIMOTHY NOHE

SOUND & KINETIC INTERVENTION PROJECTS
for a former DENTAL CLINIC
4+4+4 DAYS IN MOTION
19 - 30 May 2006

Artists, musicians and theater companies were invited to work throughout the clinic, to create works responding to the site's history, location and structure. Miloš Vojtechovsky, Dana Recmanová, and Pavel Sterec organized artist's interventions, and transmitted low-power FM broadcasts from the 3rd floor.

At the "Dum" (house) I selected a sky-lit stairwell on the 3rd floor. Sound-making objects were fabricated from trash found in the building. Motors and wind animated the debris, which was rigged to aluminum tubes, steel wire, or found objects.

INSTALLATION OBJECTS:
A hanging 4 story mobile composed of discarded documents, paint chips, decorative plaster, light fixtures, fuses, party favors, and waiting room toys. The mobile was animated by wind and user movement.

A kitchen colander from a defunct Middle-Eastern restaurant skittered across the floor when a vibrating motor was triggered.

A tasseled lampshade shook like a hula dancer when interactors pressed a button.

A feather-filled hanging lamp globe was vibrated by a motor, shaking machine parts, screws, plumbing parts, etc.

3 vibrating pager motors were placed on the stairwell knee-wall. When triggered, the buzzers resonated different tones on the steel wall.

A jar containing feathers and glass shards was placed in a stairwell niche. A user-controlled button stimulated a fan and lamps.

ODRADKY CATALOG ESSAY:
In one of his short stories, set in the stairwell of an unnamed Prague apartment building, Franz Kafka describes meeting a grotesque creature to which he gave the strangely Slavic-sounding name of Odradek. Standing on the grounds of the Jewish Gardens, probably one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Prague and abolished by King Vladislav at the end of the 15th century, the somewhat spooky atmosphere of an abandoned house became an inspiration for several minimal interventions in a section of the 3rd floor of the House.

Even though, Odradek is only a clumsy and somewhat crafty but idle mechanism, homeless, without a temporary dwelling, built out of wooden spools and balls of thread, just his essential existence, which is somewhere in the realm of an insect creeping about, offers the metaphor for whimsy to some of the temporary tenants. Well, what s your name you ask him. “Odradek,” he says. And where do you live? “No fixed abode,” he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it. It sounds rather like the rustling of fallen leaves. The temporary dwelling place and Odradek’s section is occupied by guests of Prague Nové Mesto who came from faraway Japan and America, and includes students from FAMU: Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague collaborating with their colleagues from Prague art and technical schools. Some of them chose as their subject the concrete memory embedded in the architecture. Others probed imaginatively into the layers of the seemingly empty building wherein history has stood still for 15 years, where the timeless residue lingers from the

1980s. There have been seemingly many changes behind the windows. However, if you think about it a little, this may be only our illusion or wish. Just the kinds and designs of Odradeks are today naturally much more sophisticated than a hundred years ago.

Even though, Odradek is only a clumsy and somewhat crafty but idle mechanism, homeless, without a temporary dwelling, built out of wooden spools and balls of thread, just his essential existence, which is somewhere in the realm of an insect creeping about, offers the metaphor for whimsy to some of the temporary tenants. Well, what s your name you ask him. “Odradek,” he says. And where do you live? “No fixed abode,” he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it. It sounds rather like the rustling of fallen leaves. The temporary dwelling place and Odradek’s section is occupied by guests of Prague Nové Mesto who came from faraway Japan and America, and includes students from FAMU: Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague collaborating with their colleagues from Prague art and technical schools. Some of them chose as their subject the concrete memory embedded in the architecture. Others probed imaginatively into the layers of the seemingly empty building wherein history has stood still for 15 years, where the timeless residue lingers from the 1980s. There have been seemingly many changes behind the windows. However, if you think about it a little, this may be only our illusion or wish. Just the kinds and designs of Odradeks are today naturally much more sophisticated than a hundred years ago.

— Miloš Vojtechovsky

STILLS:

Jungmannova 21	Site, before	Detritus collection
Found in building	Top of mobile	Mobile detritus
Mobile detail	Mobile view up	Mobile, 2nd floor
Mobile, 2nd floor	First floor mobile	Detail, first floor
Ground floor, up	Detail ground floor	Kinetic lampshade
Kinetic colander	Kinetic lamp globe	Button trigger
Stairwell buzzer mechanism	Jar with blower, lamps	Opening

VIDEO: Full-length movie, 7.4 MB

ODRADKY ORGANIZATION:
Miloš Vojtechovsky, Dana Recmanová, Pavel Sterec