The Takeaway is an ongoing project that has been running since 2020 and takes different forms of listening to urban surroundings, from clandestine eavesdropping to conducting workshops and listening walks.

Listening platforms that have been created within the project—a headset, individual and collective listening practices—have the ability to activate listening and enable real-time processing of listening in an urban environment. As a part of the NEXT festival 2024, there will be an introductory presentation of the Takeaway project and a soundwalk with a small group of people. The participants will be using the invented headset, serving as a mobile tool that activates listeners’ attention and alters their experience of the site-specific auditory situation and atmosphere. The headset allows the listener to manipulate and “play” with the live sound environment around them, blurring the boundaries between listening and composing, between performer and audience.

Martin Hurych
Martin Hurych is an artist and curator living and working in The Hague (NL) and Lubná (CZ). His work oscillates between the media of sound art and architecture, based primarily on reflections on the character of the specific site. The artist is known for a certain amount of exaggeration and warm humor, but at the same time, he is sensitive to social problems, which is an issue he critically draws attention to with his works. Hurych graduated from architecture at ARC FAST BUT in the Czech Republic, completed his bachelor’s degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Technology in Brno, and his master’s degree at the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. He worked as an assistant at Studio Intermedia I at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and as an assistant to sculptor Jiří Příhoda. He currently works as a research associate at the Institute of Sonology.