Hollow at Bergen Kunsthalle for "Aura"

In collaboration with the interdisciplinary event series Montag Modus, Bergen Kunsthall invited the Hungarian collective Hollow to work on their project „Aura" in the Live Studio. The residency took place in June 2023 in Bergen, Norway. 

“Aura” examines the relationship between theater and reality, as well as the world-making potential of shared imagination. Similarly to the collective’s previous immersive works, the audience is invited to join an imaginary journey, evoked through poetics, media art, contemporary dance, role-playing, experimental electronic music and singing. The starting point for the performance was an international research on world-building strategies of grassroots communities in Eastern Europe and began with the unearthing of hidden queer histories in Warsaw, Tbilisi, and Budapest. 

Aura premiered in April 2023 at the Trafó House of Contemporary Arts in Budapest and in July, it will be further developed in the frame of Montag Modus at radialsystem in Berlin. 

More information: https://www.kunsthall.no/en/live-studio/2023/hollow/

With support from Kulturrådet.

Rocio Marano, Matria at Out of the box#1 ©Barbara Antal

We are looking for proposals for the second iteration of the experimental performance series Out of the Box. The series will invite two emerging artists to adapt existing stage works to a gallery space. For this, we will offer the following framework: 2500€ budget per project, a 7-day rehearsal period with technical support and a mentoring program in which the artists receive support from dramaturges and curators. 

Out of the Box #2 will take place between 1-3 October at Zönotéka.

Please fill out the application form and send it to mmpraxisberlin@gmail.com in a pdf-format by 17.07.2022. 

Application form here.

Image by Barbara Antal, 2018

We are excited to share that on 18 May at 6 pm at Turbina Cultural Center in Budapest, Sergiu Matis will perform his solo "Nocturne for broken vocal cords", a performance commissioned by Montag Modus/MMpraxis, Collegium Hungaricum in 2018.

Nocturne for broken vocal cords is part of Sergiu Matis’ “Noise Nocturnes”, a series of performances and texts that revisit the romantic genre in its fascination for the night and darkness, imitating nature and flirting with folklore.

The massive blocks of acoustic and motoric noise, as well as the abundance of recycled texts spoken at high speed or shouted, constitute the dense score of the nocturne. Choreographic tools applied to movement and voice make navigation possible through the overload of glitched and fragmented moves and sounds, by supporting chaos with coherence.

Intense shouting transforms the voice into a hopeless and hurtful tune.

This solo was first commissioned for Montag Modus/MMpraxis, Hungarian Cultural Institute (Collegium Hungaricum) in Berlin in 2018, and has since been presented at KVS Brussels, Reykjavík Dance Festival, UNSEEN Festival Cavtat (Croatia), WASP Bucharest and Baroque Urban Timișoara (Romania). 

We are looking for Berlin-based choreographers for our new series Out of the Box (working title Gray Zone) that is organized by the MMpraxis curatorial platform in collaboration with Contemporary Arts Alliance (CAA).

During Gallery Weekend, the series will invite two emerging artist to adapt existing stage works to a gallery space. For this, we will offer the following framework: 2500€ budget per project, a 7-day rehearsal period with technical support and a mentoring program in which the artists receive support from dramaturges and curators. 

Please fill out the application form and send it to mmpraxisberlin@gmail.com in a pdf-format by 13 February 2022.

More information on the open call and the application form here

1. Melanie Jame Wolf at Klimata #1, CHB Berlin 2019, photo Barbara Antal

Being-With and Giving Time – in her essay, writer Alison Hugill documented the last iteration of ShareHolders that featured works by Cru Encarnação, Göksu Kunak, Maru Mushtrieva and Fette Sans. You can read her reflections HERE.

Being-With and Giving Time. Essay designed by Adrienn Császár

The summary video of Montag Modus' ShareHolders (2021) is online. The video, made by Agnesh Pakozdi, documents the first performance-exhibition of ShareHolders organized in radialsystem, Berlin.
You can watch the video here

Still from ShareHolders video (c) Agnesh Pakozdi

Ecology of Attention cover, design: Adrienn Császár

The publication of Montag Modus' Ecology of Attention project is available online.  Ecology of Attention is an experimental documentation of the eponymous performance-exhibitions series. It includes the artistic contributions that were presented during the cycle as well as five new commissioned works that take a next step in the research of this subject.

Commissioned texts:
Julia Bell
Cru Encarnação
eeefff collective
Dina El Kaisy Friemuth
Susan Ploetz

Artists:
Lois Alexander 
Julia Bell 
Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm 
Christina Ciupke & Darko Dragičević
Nicholas Grafia & Mikołaj Sobczak
Constantin Hartenstein 
Hollow & Omsk Social Club 
Janne Nora Kummer & Anton Krause 
Nguyễn + Transitory  
Ania Nowak & Angela Alves 
Ania Nowak & Aleksandra Osowicz
Sunny Pfalzer 
Sunny Pfalzer & Friends
Cia Rinne 
Cia Rinne with Sebastian Eskildsen
Trigger Collective 
Julian Weber
Melanie Jame Wolf 
Work it Out with Montag Modus and DUST
Lauryn Youden 
Siegmar Zacharias & Steve Heather 

Editors: Léna Szirmay-Kalos, Maru Mushtrieva
Graphic design: Adrienn Császár
Typeface: Miniature, Benedek Takács
Website developer: Tamás Páll
Editorial production assistance: Beatrice Zanesco, Lisa Koch
Copy editor: Ryan Eyers

The publication is funded by the Berlin Senate for Culture and Europe.

The interdisciplinary artwork Sprawled Soilware brings together role play, bot guardians and the traditional act of the flâneur as an augmented immersive experience available over your phone. Created under COVID-19 lockdown the collectives Omsk Social Club and Hollow have worked together to create a live exhibition format that literally opens up in front of the viewer’s screen over three different narrative scores. The aim of the work is to explore our relationship to liminality, using time as a circular motion and understanding the cosmic stack of human, technology, mineral and non-beings.  

Sprawled Soilware: Windspeed by Omsk Social Club & Hollow, Montag Modus 2021, (c) Lisa Koch

Sprawled Soilware guides the user through surreal bio-technological landscapes, ancestral hybrids and questions on who and what has the authority to make a reality. The work is multi-sensory and participatory, viewable only whilst walking, and through the popular messaging application Telegram. Divided into three alternative viewing walks, the user chooses between a scaling anima mundi character Thermadite Renji (musically scored by Cammack Lindsey) or a gothic cutie Obscura Sol (musically scored by Tamás Marquatent & András Molnár) or a multi-dimensional ancestral ectoplasm Levetia A. Eaf (musically scored by Circular Ruins) each route offers up an alternative structure of reality.

At a moment in which our ability to view and think about art is becoming increasingly compromised and restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sprawled Soilware allows a safe way to experience and rethink the boundaries of the gallery and the theater format, whereby the immediate environment takes over as the gallery and technology becomes a proxy for an experience not only a way to view an experience.

Sprawled Soilware: Windspeed by Omsk Social Club & Hollow, Montag Modus, (c) Lisa Koch

The Event

To enter the work follow the link https://soilware.net/, there you will find The Book of Access, with a short introduction and link to Telegram.

The work will open on the 27th of April 2021 (on the Pink Supermoon) worldwide and can be viewed in English, Hungarian, Czech, and German. The project will run for two years. 

Sprawled Soilware is co-produced by the Hungarian Sín Arts Centre production house and the German interdisciplinary event series Montag Modus with the support of the International Coproduction Fund of the Goethe Institut. Partners: Katlan Group, Divadlo X10, art quarter Budapest, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin.

The strongest energy lines to view on 27th April 2021 are as follows 

18.00 (Berlin) at Görlitzer Park Kreuzberg

16.00 (London) at Finsbury Park

11.00 (Mexico) at UNAM Botanical Garden

12.00 (New York City) at Battery Park

01.00 (Hong Kong) at Shek O Country Park

20.00 (Istanbul) at Tekke Parki

18.00 (Prague) Divoká Šárka

18.00 (Budapest) Tündérszikla

About the artists

Omsk Social Club forks traditional methods of Live Action Role Play (Larp) through immersive installations and into Real Game Play (RGP) to induce states that could potentially be a fiction or a yet, unlived reality. They have exhibited across Europe in various institutions, galleries, theatres and off-sites such as Martin Gropius Bau, House of Electronic Kunst Basel, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, HKW, Berlin, Volksbühne, Berlin and Stems Gallery, Brussels. They have been included in CTM Festival (2021), the 6th Athens Biennale (2018), Transmediale Festival (2019), The Influencers (2018) and Impakt Festival (2018) amongst others. In 2021 they will co-curate the 7th Athens Biennale with Larry Ossei-Mensah.

http://www.punkisdada.com/ 

Hollow embodies the shared hallucinations of choreographer Viktor Szeri, game designer Tamás Páll, and curator Gyula Muskovics. They have been working collectively since 2018, combining choreography and dance with poetics, augmented reality, role-play, sound and game mechanics to create immersive environments and cross-reality experiences. They are based in Budapest, Hungary and they have performed and exhibited in off-sites, theaters, and galleries, including art quarter budapest (Budapest); MU Theater (Budapest), Trafó House of Contemporary Arts (Budapest), House of Arts (Brno), MeetFactory (Prague), Y: Possible Futures, Divadlo X10 (Prague), dunaPart 5 - Platform for Contemporary Performing Arts (Budapest), Placcc Festival (Budapest), and Montag Modus (Berlin).

https://hollow.systems/

We are happy to share that the publication of last years Montag Modus Klimata project is available online. Klimata, composed of five events, was initiated to give a thematic compass for participating artists and curators under the broad thematic umbrella term of ‘climates’. The booklet aims at both documenting and guiding you through the events, representing all the projects in the series and giving an insight into the background mechanisms of Montag Modus.

Participating artists and writers

Virág Arany, Anna Biczók, Andres Bucci ,Christina Ciupke, bodylotion co-dance, Andreas Bolm, Boglárka Börcsök, János Brückner, Igor and Ivan Buharov, Dragana Bulut, Rachell Bo Clark, Mona De Weerdt, Mars Dietz, Igor Dobričić, Darko Dragičević, Janine Eisenächer, Michelle Ettlin, Hermina Fátyol, Judith Förster, Dóra Furulyás, Ábris Gryllus, Júlia Hadi, Bárbara Hang, Zeina Hanna, Alexandra Hennig, Gideon Horváth, Dolores Hudin, Neo Hülcker (aka Prof Puppy), Renen Itzhaki, Miriam Jakob, András Juhász, Clément Layes, Ana Laura Lozza, Linn Löffler, Endre Vazul Mándli, Lea Moro, Márió Z. Nemes, Ayşe Orhon, Iringó Réti, Julia Rodríguez, Martina Ruhsam, Andi Schmied, Rita Süveges, Márton Emil Tóth, Tamara Zsófia Vadas, Imre Vass, Szabolcs Vereb, Jasna L. Vinovrški, Litó Walkey, Julian Weber, Maya Weinberg, Henry Wilde (aka Antonia Baehr), Melanie Jame Wolf, xtro realm, Siegmar Zacharias, Anna Zilahi

Editors: Léna Szirmay-Kalos, Jasna Layes Vinovrški, Dániel Kovács

Copy editor: Beatrix Joyce 

Visual identity and design: Benedek Takács 

Earlier this year, macromedia university approached MMpraxis with an invitation to take on a special role in one of their practice based seminars on communication strategy: In the beginning of April, we were asked to introduce a group of students to Montag Modus and to explain the idea and the working structure behind a series dedicated to the live arts: How exactly do we collaborate with invited artists? What are the ways in which we engage with our audience? Can we expand the possibilities of recording and documenting time-based media and ephemeral arts?

Journal of Montag Modus for July made by Sankshipta Mohanty, Lisa Koch and Parminder Singh Bindra

Over the course of the past months, in the form of online university sessions, the master students of macromedia university analyzed our communication methodology and conducted in-depth interviews with our staff and with some artists from past editions of Montag Modus. By taking a peek behind the curtains of our organization, they gathered the necessary information to understand our aims and to develop a communication strategy package specifically tailored to the Montag Modus interdisciplinary series. We would like to extend our gratitude to these students for sharing with us valuable information on how to better facilitate access to and knowledge about the live arts as well as for equipping us with better social media tools to share time-based media with the world - both during and post-show. Also, thanks to macromedia university for reaching out and allowing us the opportunity to go back to school and improve!

Journal of Montag Modus for November made by Sankshipta Mohanty, Lisa Koch and Parminder Singh Bindra

The following students of the M.A. program Media and Communication Management were ready to devote their time to getting to know more about Montag Modus and about performance art in general. Below you can find the final presentation of the two groups.

Sankshipta Mohanty 

Lisa Koch 

Parminder Singh Bindra

PDF 1

PDF 2

Tribeni Das 

Kawaljeet Kaur 

Saurav Nimesh 

Ronak Shah

PDF 3

PDF 4

Hereby we would like to thank Mafalda Sandrini and Kata Katz from macromedia university for the invitation.

1. Art of Movement photo by Lisa Rave

THE ART OF MOVEMENT is a sensual and insightful portrait of three dancers from Budapest: Irén, Éva and Ágnes, aged between 90 and 100 years old, were each once part of the early modern dance movement in Hungary. To survive the momentous socio-political changes of the last century, they transformed their lives and movement practices. Boglárka Börcsök’s film is an intimate encounter with these three personalities and their respective relationships to their own past and present.

You can meet the filmmakers Boglárka Börcsök and Andreas Bolm on Thursday (28th of May) at 19h in a Live ZOOM Q&A talk organized with curators Katalin Erdődi and Léna Szirmay-Kalos. The talk will be in English.

Join with your questions and comments on Zoom for a live moderated discussion about the film.

Please note: By attending the Zoom meeting you agree to your voice and image being recorded and published. You are however free to turn off your camera and microphone and just listen to the meeting. 

The online premiere of ›THE ART OF MOVEMENT‹ is supported and hosted by PACT Zollverein, Tanzquartier Wien und MMpraxis.

2. Art of Movement photo by Lisa Rave

THE ART OF MOVEMENT

A film by Boglárka Börcsök
In collaboration with Andreas Bolm
DE 2020, 58 mins, in Hungarian with English surtitles

Trailer ›THE ART OF MOVEMENT‹

The full film can be seen from Monday, 25.05. 16h until midnight on Friday, 29.05.2020 

›THE ART OF MOVEMENT‹ is a sensual and insightful film about three elderly dancers from Budapest. Irén, Éva and Ágnes - all between 90 and 100 years old – were once part of the early modern dance movement in Hungary.

Taking on the roles of both dance student and dialogue partner, Boglárka retraces how each of these elderly dancers transformed their lives and movement practices in order to survive the major socio-political changes of the last century.

Developed over the course of several years and in part in residency at PACT, the film is a personal and bodily encounter with three very different personalities and their relationships to their past and present. Returning to the stage and performing in their own private rooms, Irén, Éva and Ágnes reveal to the viewers the incredible depth and richness of experience stored in their bodies - a  choreography of memories.

Boglárka Börcsök is a Hungarian artist and performer whose collaborative work with filmmaker Andreas Bolm deals with the biopolitics of the older female body. During an ATELIER edition at PACT in February 2020, she presented the performance and video installation ›Figuring Age‹, which also emerged from her research and discussions with Irén, Éva and Ágnes.

Cast 
Éva E. Kovács, Irén Preisich, Ágnes Roboz

Written & directed 
Boglárka Börcsök

Artistic collaboration 
Andreas Bolm

Editing 
Andreas Bolm & Boglárka Börcsök

Cinematography 
Lisa Rave

Production company 
Whole Wall Films

Production manager 
Elisa Calosi

Color and sound 
Andreas Bolm

Sound mixing 
Jochen Jezzusek

English translation 
David Robert Evans

Funded by
Tanzfonds Erbe - an initiative by German Federal Cultural Foundation, La Musée de la Danse/ Centre choréographique de Rennes et de Bretagne, Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, Berlin

Supported by
Akademie Schloss Solitude & József Attila Circle within the Eastern European exchange program
Hungarian National Film Fund - Film Archive 
OSzMI - Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute
Pact Zollverein Residency Program
AQB - Art Quarter Budapest
Franz Liszt Academy of Music
Orkesztika Foundationweltfilm

© 2020 Whole Wall Films & Boglárka Börcsök