Curated by: Martina Kotláriková a Daniel Kordík
“Dunkel Therapy” is a pilot project of Kunsthalle Bratislava in collaboration with the NEXT – Advanced Music Festival, which uses the exhibition space A Black Box for darkness and sound therapy. Gradually during the year, we will welcome eight Slovak music labels and their producers to the exhibition space – A Black Box. After the summer break we will meet again with Michal Lichý from label Urbsounds Collective and Jonáš Gruska from LOM.
In contemporary art, the space called “black box” is commonly used as an exhibition space for video art, in the theatre for various performances and in the club scene as a space for a dance party. A series of “listening sessions” in complete darkness, in the space where we usually have the opportunity to see visual works, gives space to quality experimental Slovak music labels that have recently been subtly earning their place on the world music map. The “Dunkel Therapy” project wants to bring the visitors an intense experience of listening to music, sounds or field recordings by suppressing all other senses except hearing. In total darkness, visitors can perceive things that we miss in the light and at a concert full of visual sensations. At “Dunkel Therapy” it is possible to sit, lie, stand, or listen and feel the music in any comfortable position.
Urbsounds Collective (a mutated electronic offspring of Bratislava and the Slovak DIY scene of the 90s) was founded in 2001 as a result of the friendship of Monika, Daniel, Tobiáš, and Michal and their common interests, shared opinions and love of music. It has become a platform for exchanging experiences, supporting creative and unusual electronic and media events, distributing DIY materials, organizing experimental electronic music events, and releasing recordings. They played their first concert in November 2001 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. They performed in various European galleries, clubs, squats, and festivals. With the natural passage of time, collective activities ceased, friendships remained, and Urbsounds remained a publisher of more extreme forms of electronic music without borders and events with such music. Modern, free, contemporary, broad-spectrum, intelligent, obscure, experimental, unique, quality, original, extraordinary… these words often characterize electronic music. With rbnx, things are different. It’s the same with Urbsounds.
https://urbsounds.sk/
LOM is a Bratislava-based label focused on music crossing genre boundaries, field recording and experiments from Eastern Europe. Besides releasing music, LOM also exists as a cultural space in Petržalka and a brand of unique microphones.
https://lom.audio