Watch the the video reportage of Alexandra Cihanská Machová’s audiovisual performnace Atlas at NEXT 2024.

With a strong and persistent interest in rigorous listening to the world as a fundamental outlet for understanding and connection, leaning towards sonic ecology and politics, non-technocentric field recording, and exploring emotion in a post-digital environment, in this composition, Alexandra Cihanská Machová deals with a personal split relationship to the world, to man and the redefinition of his position within new or potential ecosystems. Love and compassion appear as the only functional strategy in a crumbling world, the composition thus becomes a kind of utopian trip to the lost land, simultaneously dark and sweet, spilling over from a resigned, sarcastic position into a soothing acceptance and rest. Field recordings, warped quotations, drone surfaces, live and synthetic voices, or fragments of poetry influenced by trap and other pop music genres flow into the multi-layered composition.

Alexandra Cihanská Machová is a composer, electronic musician and sound artist from Slovakia. Her main means of expression is sound in various forms from acoustic instruments, field recordings, live coding and others, but often connected with other media as well. In the past she used to work with larger forms such as the multimedia concert, currently she is more interested in the relationship of sound and space, sound installations, and sound in virtual environments. She also composes music for film, theater or radio, and works with moving images.

The artwork is commissioned by A4. The video is produced by A4 as part of New Perspectives for Action, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union and supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council and Bratislava City Foundation.

Video: Daniel Kazankov & Michal Vasiľ & Debora Pastirčáková for A4
Authors concept: Anete Bužoka