Burning Matters: Rituals of Remembering and Reimagining

The project emerged from sustained local engagement, including focused historical research, conversations with the museum’s historian, collaboration with a local sound artist and choir, and listening sessions with residents of Jeseník. These encounters revealed a recurring tension within the region: a landscape shaped by layered histories of displacement and cultural fragmentation, alongside a widely articulated sense of historical rupture. Despite the density of historical events, many inhabitants reported feeling “having no local history.” Burning Matters responds to this paradox by proposing mythology not as a fixed inheritance but as a collective, present-tense practice—something that can be consciously authored through participation.

The work takes the form of a participatory performance comprising three interconnected stations that engage mind, body, and imagination. Participants are not positioned as spectators, but as temporary communities formed across age, gender, belief systems, and social backgrounds. Through structured yet open-ended formats, the project cultivates attentive listening, dialogue, and shared vulnerability as methods of social inquiry.

Difference is approached not as a problem to be resolved, but as a productive condition for collective meaning-making.

A central component of the project is an embodied practice of resonance. Participants are guided through simple yet precise techniques of synchronised breathing, humming, and vocal vibration. These practices activate the body as a site of knowledge and relational attunement, fostering a sense of collective presence without requiring consensus or uniformity. Voice functions here not as performance, but as a shared medium—countering the historical silencing associated with the witch trials and reframing sound as a communal technology of care.

Ultimately, Burning Matters approaches the witch trials not only as a historical subject but as an ongoing social condition. It frames mythology as a relational and living practice and positions creativity as a civic capacity rather than a specialised skill. By inviting participants to imagine, voice, and sense together, the project proposes that more inclusive ways of living are not merely abstract ideals but embodied practices that can be collectively rehearsed.

Burning Matters is a participatory performance project developed as a critical and embodied response to the Jeseník Museum’s exhibition on early modern witch trials. Rather than extending the historical narrative through representation, the project activates history as a lived and relational force—one that continues to reverberate through contemporary social structures, bodies, and collective imaginaries.

Rooted in site-specific research and sustained dialogue with local historians, artists, and residents of Jeseník, the work emerged from a shared recognition of historical fragmentation and the absence of a cohesive local mythology. Jeseník is marked by layered histories of violence, displacement, and cultural overlap, yet many inhabitants articulate a sense of disconnection from these narratives.

Burning Matters addresses this condition by proposing that mythology be understood as a collective, present-tense practice rather than a fixed inheritance.

The project unfolds as a participatory ritual comprising interconnected stations that engage the mind, body, and imagination.

Through facilitated dialogue, poetic prompts, embodied voice practices, and collective myth-making, participants are invited into temporary communities that cut across age, belief systems, and social backgrounds.

These encounters foreground listening, resonance, and co-creation as tools for social attunement and care.

Central to the work is a shared vocal practice—synchronised breathing, humming, and singing—that activates the body as a medium of connection and transforms voice from an expressive act into a collective instrument.

A culminating gathering in a church space brings together the project’s sonic, textual, and relational outcomes. Reflections generated through participatory exchanges are read aloud as a collective poem, while shared singing reclaims spaces historically associated with judgment and exclusion. In this moment, grief, division, and inherited harm are not erased but held, transformed, and reimagined through collective presence.

Burning Matters positions itself not as an exhibition to be observed, but as a rehearsal for another way of being together. It asks how histories of persecution continue to shape contemporary forms of exclusion, and how embodied participation, play, and imagination might open pathways toward more inclusive, relational futures.

The work affirms that the creation of shared narratives—and the responsibility for shaping them—lies in the hands, voices, and bodies of those who gather.

Full Article HERE >

Yesterday’s truth is today’s deception and yesterday’s false inference may be tomorrow’s revelation.

Oscillating between sense and nonsense, consciousness is dancing with the subconscious, all realities vibrating towards non-linear freedom from opposites.

Hlina

Do hliny sa zaboriť. Vrážať drsné prsty do hrudiek studenej teplej hliny.
Cítiť.
Držať.
Hmatať.
Chmátať.
Vnoriť sa, zaboriť sa.
Votrieť si hlinu do uší.
Zaraziť prsty do zeme, priložiť líce do lesa.

Voda z potoka.
Očistné, ochranné schopnosti. Narábať s hlinou ako s kúskom domova. Čeliť nepríčetnosti. Čítať budúcnosť. V hline sa pariť. V hline sa páriť.

Našuchorené ihličie.
Dnes som poliala kvety slanou vodou.
Strčiť nohy do horúcej vody s maslom.
Roztekajúci sa med.
Mach prerastajúci telom ako slanina.
Ako sa do hory volá, taký potok z nej vyteká.

Korene stromov obmotané okolo krku.
Ešte som sa nedusila. Mäso vytrhané z plúc zeme. Hlina rozsypaná po chodbe. Ležíme spolu v daždi prázdnoty?

Ako je to keď veríš?
Mohli by sme spolu vzkriesiť mŕtve duše myšlienok?
Koľko stojí duša a komu sa predáva?
Je duša zelená alebo tmavomodrá?
Čakám na zázraky.
Čo keď myšlienka uzdravuje?
Pevné ruky nádeje hlboko zaborené v pohyblivom piesku.
Istota tiež musí platiť dane.
Smútiť sa nemá nahlas.
Na hlase spoznáš smútok.

V hmle sa neobzeraj za seba.
V hmle sa obzri za seba tri krát.
V noci sa pozeraj do hmly.
V noci sa pozeraj do troch očí.
Uvidíš pravdu.

Kričiace tiene.
Stúpajúce z vody ako smädná para. Vyhýbajú sa hmle. Sedia ti na ramenách ako vlažná rosa v sobotu ráno.
Kričia potichu.
Aby si ich počul.

Vrkoče.
Vrkoče z jašteríc.
Zapletené hlboko do jaskyne.
Vytekajúca slaná voda.
Už si dnes umyla nohy Ježišovi?

Držať niekoho kožu.
Chytať sa pórov rázovitej tváre.
Sedieť pevne na zemi a chytať sa.

Kto vyrastá zo zeme, ten do nej vplynie.
Dážďovky
Už ich moc nevídam. Pamätáš sa na ten smrad rozkladajúceho sa mäsa po daždi?
Taká sladká vôňa zomierajúcich dážďoviek.
To už nebýva.

Keď je hustá hmla, niekto umrie.
Mor.
Kliatba, ktorá nás prenasleduje. Hlboko v kostiach, v horách, v korunách stromov.
Vôňa smrti sedí na korunách stromov ako posvätná sova.
Sype sa zo skál ako prach mŕtvych tiel. Vsakuje sa do zeme. Do vody čistiacej našu budúcnosť. Jagavé bezvetrie. Beztvará pokrývka života. Sadá na poli ako bezvetrie na hrudky srsti.



Nádej.
Dúfajúc, že čary fungujú, kto sa okúpe v potoku pri splne a trikrát sa pokropí mesačnou vodou, do roka a do dňa sa stane svojou budúcnosťou.

Zrodená z vody mesačnej, panna nečistá, dúfa, že ju zachráni povera.
Piť krv.
Krv.
Namočená nádej.
Sila.
Energia viery.
Kto tvojukrv vypije, poblázni sa.

Nohy zviazané reťazami.
Tečúci vosk
pomaly formuje tvoju budúcnosť.
Šeptáš pravdu z odrazu plameňa.
Čo si praješ?
Koľko nám ešte zostáva času?

Dotýkaš sa slov.
V jemnom prameni života.
Kedy to skončí?
Syr škrýpajúci medzi zubami.
Vždy sa nájde niečo čomu chceme veriť.
Pod každým stromom sa skrýva zázrak.

Magické.
Každý má nárok na magické.
Zázrak zapečený do kúska nádeje.

Keď sa v noci prvomájovej okúpeš v krvi mesačnej, do roka sa vydáš s do roka zomrieš.

Trikrát sa pomodli, povoľ a prežehnaj.

Become a farmer of your body - farm your health - farm your conversations - actions - farm your breath - change the context - cultivate - farm you!

WHEN NOTHING IS CERTAIN, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Are our realities a simple simulation of our Self as well as the simulation of the “safe space” within our circle? The circle of Pentacle 15.3 speakers is a metaphor - simulated spatial cognition - sound movement and distance is not “real”. The distance and positions of the sound emitters are programmed to create a virtual environment. How far is the reality? How far are our Selves?

SEE THE DARKNESS THROUGH THE LIGHT

What is left to us living in the world without security, utopia, ignorance and uncertainty? We live in volatile times of the Cold War, unable to grasp anything but bias. We are living in the time of personal micro confusion and a huge macro sociopolitical identity crisis.

HOW IS THAT FOR YOU NOT TO BELIEVE IN ANYTHING?

Bias loop is not just a poem about searching for the true Self. Looking into the eyes of uncomfortable truth via the light of darkness and stepping out of the comfort zone of inherited or learned bias loops. It is an appeal to the major blindness of all of us. The stop word.
We are lucky to be here, to face it - we are lucky to be the ones who can face the monsters - stop running from them - turn around and say STOP. We are lucky to create a new order and new environments - we are lucky to program our realities and set the parameters of the sound we want to hear.

IT IS ELASTIC

IT IS THE SIMULATION, and it is good. Because we can change it. Regardless of the level of our focus, we can program our own personal simulations, and we can change the public spaces we live in. We are the person chasing us in our dreams, we are those monsters haunting us, causing our insomnia and sleep paralysis. Let’s stop. Breath deeply and talk to them.
We will never know what we are suppressing, avoiding or do not want to look at unless we stop and deal with it.

My monsters are ugly, and I usually do not like ugly and uncomfortable things in my life. But it is part of it, and it is a very valuable experience to be friends with your rude but clear-speaking friends. Truth hurts and stinks. So we often try to close it deeply in the cellar. Chain it and never feed it ,so it starves. Deep down in our personal cellars, it does not die. It is getting stronger, living out of anger, sadness or any other strong energy we give to it anyway. Once we go down to take out some old ski equipment, our angry friend jumps on us and goes crazy at the most unexpected time (when we actually plan a ski trip or just cook a dinner).

Stepping out of our comfort zones, finding the keys in the dark cellars full of monsters, and inviting them in for a cup of tea instead of running from them is the moment of overcoming our biases. Having a personal monster as a friend is a great gift. It is a power - it is wisdom making us true and balanced. Reconnected.

YOU HAVE TO DIE

What will happen once we want to escape - glitch and distort our “Self” as a recorded program? The sound of organic cello strings, voices, noises from the streets, talks, animals, wind and nature are being transformed into a different level - new realities - malformed - biases - skewed and looped.

The self is a projection. Same as the XYZ scales we live in. Is it who we really are or who we really want to be? The destruction of ourselves, society, and nature created a pattern. Constantly dying and being recreated again and again in the loop. How many times do we have to die to realise we have never lived? We are going to be lost, running from our own awareness till we stop, turn around and look outside. When we decide to let go of our ego, when we let our Self die, only then are we able to reconnect.

TO RECONNECT

Disconnect self and reconnect to oneness to the infinite - get out of the bias loop and connect to every other living thing - expand and reconnect with yourself. We can only appreciate life via death. Darkness via light and calm via uncertainty.

Bias Loop is the poem for the funeral of Self

Is there a reality that is fundamental to human beings?

MÜGGELSEE OBSERVATIONS



Take care of yourself | Take care of others | Take care of the planet

To hear can mean to listen attentively (Webster's dictionary) or to receive information by the ear. One can hear somebody or something. As a

Webster's dictionary suggests that one can hear confession in a Roman Catholic Church. We can overhear someone or something without the intention to listen. We can intentionally perceive, tune in, and observe.

As Webster says, listening means giving attention to sound or sounds or perceiving with the ear to hear with thoughtful attention, to consider seriously.
Listening takes place in the auditory cortex. It is based on the experience of the waveforms transmitted by the ear to the brain.

We are trained to categorise sounds from the moment we start to understand the external world, as explained to us. We learn how birds sound, what water sounds like, and how to identify the wind. As Pauline Oliveros says, sound pressure patterns assist hearing, but cultural patterns influence listening.

FULL ARTICLE HERE >>

How do I listen to the forest? What is the language of the river, and how can I understand trees?

I decided to spend as much time as possible in January in the woods behind my house. I wanted to comprehend it. I tried to listen, observe, journal, record, draw, feel. I spent my mornings, evenings, and noons with trees, rivers and recording devices.
My first recording instrument was my memory. Pretty much the opposite of an exact recording instrument, as I learned. Although I was thrilled by the idea of memory being my very first tool to mention. How dramatic! The perception of time seems to be an illusion of our brains. The memory of sounds turned into a dream-like sensation right after I came home from the recording session.

What do I remember?

The sound of raindrops on my skin, on leaves, hitting the rotten grass and muddy ground, swooshing through the tree branches around my ears, allowing me to hear, to listen.

How does rain sound to you?

The Sound memory of raindrops has become a tiny space-time capsule, bonded to the exact moment and place, the first artefact for my research collection. All sounds we remember belong to a particular space-time, a specific trigger that vibrates the air.
“There is no sound pressure variation that will always lead to one and only one perception, and there is no perception that always comes from one and only one pressure variation.” (Handel & Oliveros). Your rain will not sound like my rain.
Next time, to share my experience satisfactorily, I materialised a few memories for you. My goal is to listen deeply, consciously, observe, and eventually write a report about it.

What did I expect?

I imagined entering the forest and collecting sounds, impressions, pictures, and rememberings like they grow there like mushrooms. I imagined encountering wild animals, recording the vibrant sounds of insects and reconstructing them into a colourful carpet, a composition you can listen to as a message from the place.

What did I learn?

The sounds are not always so spectacular as we are used to in our stimulated culture. I intended to create the “perfect” composition from hours of mostly noisy recordings. I primarily commented how loud I was, so I heard nothing else but my jacket or someone else talking in the distance. The dramatic sounds of nature, boosted and reverberated, were not waiting for me. I have learned that we create so much sound and noise only with our clothes that they can overpower all beautiful, calm and peaceful messages constantly coming from nature.
I have learned that I have to stop moving, breathing, and, mainly, thinking to become invisible and receive rather than impose. After becoming an imaginary, invisible observer, the outside world offered me ample material to work with.

Channel vibration through the heart and focus on the sound that will heal you and help heal others

A message I received after the annual ritual I have been doing. Every year, sometimes every few months, I take a few days to reconnect with my roots. I ask my ancestors for support, all kinds of universe beings, to learn my upcoming mission. What shall I know to make the world a better place?
Channel vibration through the heart. Make sounds for others.
Healing seems to be a topic we all need to incorporate into our lives. Lost connection with nature, with our base, with the need to ground ourselves, with the need to stop. Look into the distance, touch something alive, inhale love instead of fear and anxiety. What do you want to do to make the world a better place?

136,10Hz

Everything in nature vibrates.
Sound tunes our bodies through frequencies on our nervous system. The proper medicine, in this case in the form of vibration, promotes individual empowerment and balances out our active and receptive powers. I am taking this message and reinforcing the inner mission to create vibrations with a healing purpose. My editing tool suggests using word beats instead of vibrations. How thoughtful. Well, then, I am taking this message and reinforcing the inner mission to create beats with a healing purpose. The plan is to act as an extension of nature, using tools to develop environments where others can release, heal, and learn. The goal is to create so that others can receive.

Inhale, exhale, disappear.

One morning I fished sounds from the frozen river. I hooked the noises of morning tides on my hydrophone like they would be the shiniest fish in the pond. I fished out the sonic whale!

Every day at 9 AM, a colossal metal boat travels the Spree River down towards the lake. At 5 PM, it comes back. It is huge and loud, and one of many sonic polluters here. The others are personal and professional boats loaded with humans drinking beers and playing aesthetically insufficient and ignorant loud music while assuming they are living their moist Instagram dream. The lake will become an environmental zone, allowing only hybrid and electric boats from 2025. Critics are loud, like the music playing from their ships.

“Diesel and petrol ships often spill fuel and oil into the river and lake water. Wave action also erodes the shore and harms ecosystems, including fish spawning. The wave impact would not be reduced by hybrid and electric boats, but certainly, the noise and combustion residues are transported through the water to all lake areas. The sports clubs do not see this problem.” (https://www.green-zones.eu/)
Inhale, exhale, disappear. My little ritual for beginning each observation is remembering the importance of surrendering to the subject. No judgment, open head and heart. I hope for melting ice. It is rare this winter anyway. My ultimate catch of melting ice under ships and boats became just an encapsulated memory. I have never captured it on the mic. I have listened to that sound only once this year, and I did not record it. Immersive sound installation – crackling, melting ice in the water, and pieces of ice hitting each other in the morning river traffic. It lives in my recollection. The precious, untransferable idea of sound perfection. Since then, I have hoped for the ice. It came one more time, and this was the day I was standing, ready, all prepared with my hydrophone for the melting ice symphony. Nothing was melting. No boats. No birds. Only silence.
The days after deep meditation and fasting appeared to be the most successful for finding the best observation approach. To truly listen meant to disappear.
Suddenly, I hear a very low vibration. A drone. What is that? Coming slowly and steadily from underwater, from the ice world. I could hear how the space fills in with the frequency,  taking so much space and getting stronger each second. There it was – a massive monster truck of the water boards! Strike! I got the sound. At the same time, I have realised how huge the environment’s pollution by noise and chemicals might be. How much oil do they extract into the river? The area I live in is a “Naturschutzgebiet”, a protected area for nature conservation. So how do those engine monsters and party boats exactly care?

“Sounds carry intelligence. Ideas, feelings and memories are triggered by sounds. If you are too narrow in your awareness of sounds, you are likely to be disconnected from your environment.” (Oliveros).

I have to step out of myself to connect to my environment.

What did I do?

When I was a tiny being, I spent many days in the forest. I would sit in the moss for hours, observing the forest, often wishing for a miraculous sun ray or a magical gate that would turn me into an animal or give me the power to speak with them. When you see a gate made out of two or more trees, go there; it is a door into another realm. When you see the sun shining onto someplace, and your heart jumps a little, go there and listen to that place. It has a treasure for you.

To hear better, to feel deeper

I decided to come as often as possible, see the development, slight changes of the same places, and observe “the same place” as a unique organism, constantly changing and transforming. No place is the same; no sound is the same when we watch them in time.
I used very sensitive microphones for hydro and seismic measurements to capture what these places wanted to say. Indigenous cultures teach us that in each object, plan, organism sits and intelligence a spirit. If Pauline says that sounds carry intelligence, they might as well carry a spirit.
Every time I entered my field of observation, I stepped into the holy realm of spirits; I hoped they might talk to me, using the sound as our language.
When you ask the forest out loud for a talk, it most probably will feel super silly. I felt like this was a good introduction, and as a good guest, I should politely explain my intentions. Such a tiny ritual can suddenly turn into a powerful tool. I am not sure whether spirits care about my article at all.

From Awareness to activism

Each living being plays a particular role on this planet. That’s what indigenous knowledge teaches us. Each being has certain gifts, its own intelligence, story and spirit. Wall Kimmerer says that education should enable us to discover them and use them well. According to Kimmerer, these gifts are a way of caring for each other. It is a diversity and inclusion strategy developed by the ultimate enterprise, to take good care of all “employees”. Some plants feed hungry animals; some animals should provide for other parts of the system. Kimmerer calls it a “web of reciprocity”. It connects us all. It is not only about feeding and being fed. It is the whole ecosystem interconnected and intertwined. What is the gift you share with others?
When my close friend experienced a loss in her life, she lost a piece of herself. Like when you tear apart two plants growing tightly together, one of them loses a big chunk of roots or gets damaged, while the other plant does not recognise anything and grows further. My dear friend was missing roots. She met a wise person on her journey, who asked her a question:
“Do you have a purpose in your life?” “No.” Answered my friend. “Until you find it again, I will give you one: Take care of yourself, take care of others and take care of the planet.”

Indigenous teachers tell us that plants are unique beings with their own will. They come where they are needed and always find their place to fulfil their roles. I believe our purpose can shift and evolve depending on our skills, the environment we live in, or the conditions we face. Same as plants, we adapt and evolve. Without being aware of our role in the ecosystem, we might feel like we lost roots, or we stop growing, perhaps. Without purpose, we fade. Do you have a purpose in your life?

My listening to the biotope gained quite intimate qualities. I placed microphones in all kinds of forest places, sometimes without consent. Most of the time, I got no response. Are my microphones not sensitive enough? Am I too impatient? Am I too loud? Is this place dead or hiding? No. Oh, what an anthropocentric approach, Nina!

I decided to talk to them. Loud and clear. Polite and firm, to show my respect and devotion. The land and waters became my teacher, or rather a narrator. Trees started to share their stories, and sometimes I learned something from birds or hungry ducks. I believe that to the attentive observer, plants reveal their secrets. Nature has its own language; what is the sound of a falling tree when nobody listens anyway?