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Tunnel Vision(s)
July 11th 2020 @ Starý Vítkovský tunelTunnel vision def.: defective sight in which objects cannot be properly seen if not close to the centre of the field of view.
Tunnel vision(s) def.: effective sight in which OBJECT:PARADISE can be fully comprehended at any spectrum of the given field of view.
In July 2020, the Czech Ministry of Health eased COVID-19 restrictions, allowing temporary out-door social gatherings for the Summer. Having just drafted the first edition of the OBJECT:PARADISE Manifesto, the O:P collective was eager to curate a community happening that celebrated the opportunity to gather once again and test our newly formulated approach towards a contextually-dependent, interdisciplinary poetics.
It was decided by collective members that our next happening would take place in one of Žižkov’s hidden secrets: the Starý Vítkovský Tunel, a public tunnel which lies below Vitkov and stretches roughly a kilometer in length with a slight bend in the middle, causing an eerie acoustic manipulation to fill the space.
A month before the event, we organized a meeting with a group of twenty artists to brainstorm the actions, happenings, and scenography of the 3-hour curation. We invited 8 readers, 8 performers, and 4 musicians to the O:P apartment in Žižkov to participate in the discussion that poetry can be.
Pictured: The Meeting at the O:P apartment. (left) Tyko Say (right) Ανάσταση Καρναβάλι and Palencar.
Soroush Sanaeinezhad declared that he would groom his entire body and march through the tunnel naked and shaved, asking audience members to write in marker across his body whatever they desired.
Ágnes Popkorn said she would stand at the west end of the tunnel in fishnets and greet audience members with a fire show.
Palencar would do live-paintings and dress the walls of the tunnel according to the sounds they interpreted.
Stefan Fiedler and Néa Zon agreed that they would perform a protest against trash while dressed in trash in the center of the tunnel, dressed in gas masks and black.
Jo Blin would protest that the earth is flat.
And so it sounded right—sounded good and just how it should. It was June 2020 and the energy for the event was building.
A few weeks later, Tyko Say and Sandra Pasławska went down into the tunnel one evening to visually map the space for the event. And then a cop car appeared in the distance—a patrol car.
It entered the tunnel and crept past us, the officers giving a slight head nod as we stood there in the July evening.
“Fuck.”
We sat at the entrance of the tunnel and calculated our options.
“Maybe it was a one-off thing?”
“Maybe they wouldn’t mind?”
“yeah, a bunch of drunk naked poets?
And then about 45-minutes later, the same patrol car appeared down the path and drove straight towards us. It was the same one, the same head nod, the same “Fuck.”
It was a week before the event and we had just found out that cops would be joining the party.
“Well, we’ll just call the managers of the tunnel”
“Yeah...the managers of the tunnel…Fuck.”
So that’s what we did.
We contacted the department of tunnels
who directed us to the Prague 3 department of transportation
who directed us to the department of parks
who directed us to the Prague-3 department of parks
who directed us to the ministry of culture
who failed to return our calls.
“Fuck.”
Pictured: Yeva Kupchenko and Neá Zon at the O:P apartment.
Photo curtesy of Sasha Honigman.
Photo curtesy of Sasha Honigman.
It was three days before the event, and we couldn’t get a contact from someone to even ask them if we could have the event in the tunnel.
“Kafka ville.”
“We should protest.”
And that was it—of course! A protest! We’ll have a protest!
With the help of several unnamed sources, we were provided a number of someone who had the direct contact for Prague’s Chief of Police.
“Tell him when you’re going to have your action, and he’ll let his officers know. They respect me. Don’t disrespect this opportunity.”
And so we called the chief of police and told him about our protest.
“It’s a protest against bureaucracy! And…it will happen between 10:00-22:00. And, yes sir, we will make sure to keep the pathway clear for rollerbladers and bicyclists. And yes, of course sir we will pick up all trash and respect the surroundings. Yes sir, thank you.”
It was the day before the event. We rented a portable toilet and directed its delivery to the east end of the tunnel. Then we drove to the Branik brewery and bought thirty empty beer crates that could be used as stools—a curation hack because when you return them you get exactly what you paid!
We were all set.
The next day we spent the entire afternoon decorating the tunnel to be OBJECT:PARADISE’s very own.
We installed stages at both ends of the kilometer-long space, which both consisted of a wooden pallet, a few scattered Branik crates, and crowned with a beautiful OBJECT:PARADISE banner painted by Palencar.
A bar in the center, courtesy of Medium 43, completed the setup, blending the echoing sounds from both ends into one continuous, haunting melody. As the crowd trickled in, the tunnel came alive—a fusion of sound, movement, and poetic protest.
Pictured: Yeva Kupchenko, Sandra Pasławska, Adéla Hrdličková and Sasha Honigman in the center of the tunnel. Photo curtesy of Julia Orlova.
At the entrance of the tunnel, Ágnes Popkorn began dancing in a burlesque outfit to a didgeridoo and box drum, manned by Luka, a mysterious Czech street busker we invited one drunken evening in Žižkov who had no phone but always had wine.
At 20:00 the event was in full force with what felt like over a hundred people.
Tyko opened the event at the west end of the tunnel to Heyme Langbroek’s trumpet and Anton Saller’s box drum.
Pictured: Tyko Say and Heyme Langbroek. Photo curtesy of Jan Černy.Palencar picked up their brush and began painting the sounds around vividly with strokes against a large canvas, and besides them before the crowd Soroush stripped off each article of clothing and began shaving his body—first his legs and then his head.
Pictured: Palencar painting. Photo curtesy of Julia Orlova.
Asgeir H Ingolfsson then took up the stage and pointed his finger strong to the crowd reading his works proud as Soroush shaved the last bit of fluff from his head. Yeva and Sasha then joined Ágnes, interacting with her and the space in yarn, spinning, twirling, and twisting from the east end to the west end of the tunnel.
Pictured: Asgeir H Ingolfsson. Photo curtesy of Julia Orlova.
A group of rollerbladers stopped to take in the commotion. Their eyes dissecting the moment as Heyme directed the tone of his horn upwards and through the tunnel like a Žižkov locomotive stampeding in from Vinohrady.
It was happening. Everything was happening. It was all happening!
Thor Garcia then stood on the platform of the west stage in his top hat and sunglasses, reading from his heart with a bottle of kozel in his hand like a sleezy beat crooner.
Pictured: (left) Heyme Langbroek. (right) Thor Garcia. Photo curtesy of Julia Orlova.
And then, the crowd took on a familiar silence. The patrol car. It drove slow and bold towards the west stage.
“Pozor!” Shouted Hunter Andrews, who was dressed in a hi-res vest and cowboy hat. “Pozor! Pozor! Watch out!”
But Thor continued to read, and Heyme and Anton continued to bang their instruments against their vocal chords and palms. The space was tense with language, expression, noise and silence.
The police car crept and crept, and then slowly and slowly drove through the happening out of the west end of the tunnel.
The space erupted with applause and cheering—POOOZOORRRR! it’s happening!
Michael Rowland assumed the stage next and, although shaken with excitement from the happening, read calmly and cooly to the rhythmic thumping of the commotion. Sasha and Yeva appeared in the crowed of onlookers, covered in string, untangling the moment with their abrupt and dynamic movements to the shared language around them.
Pictured: Michael Rowland and Sandra Pasławska. Photo curtesy of Jan Černy.
“POOOZOOOORRRR!” shouted Hunter. “POOOZOOOORRRR!” the crowd shouted back. A group of bicyclists zoomed through.
And almost silently, Adéla Hrdličková appeared from the crowd. She began interacting with Sasha, pulling her strings, her body, and manipulating the invisible space between them.
“POOOZOOOORRRR!” Adéla shouted, appropriating the communal warning as something new and shared.
“POOOZOOOORRRR,” the crowd jeered back.
Adéla then displayed her arms to Palencar who was still translating the noise of the space besides the stage.
“I need to be paint” Adéla shouted, and Palencar responded by covering the extended hands in red acrylic which Adéla then used to spread against her arms. The crowd looked on in amusement and bewilderment.
Adéla then knelt down next to the pile of Soroush’s hair, picked it up with her arm raised high and sprinkled it down on her body.
And with that, the first half of the curation came to an end and the crowd cheered and yelled in excitement for the unexpected.
Moments later, Néa Zon began banging a hand drum loudly in the center of the tunnel. “The time is now!” shouted Stefan Fiedler, sporting an outfit made entirely out of trash and plastic bottles.
The crowd swiftly shifted their attention to the new sounds that spawned in the distance. The group walked with anticipation towards the center of the tunnel, guided by Soroush who walked now naked only in a cotton garb around his waist and with language sketched all across his body.
The crowd joined in a circle around Néa and Stefan as they performed their call-to-action against unconscious consumption and the capitalist system that exploits our aptitudes for well-being and community. Both now wore gas masks and tumbled their tormented, trash-bagged bodies around the space.
Sasha, Yeva, and Ágnes continued to maneuver around the crowd, motioning towards the separate ends of the tunnel.
And all at once, Tyko and Jaromír Lelek began reading at opposite ends of the tunnel. The sound was all around and everything fused together in there in the center.
Pictured: Soroush Sanaeinezhad. Photo curtesy of Julia Orlova.
Half of the crowd returned to the East stage where Jaromír was reading and the other half went to the West stage where Tyko was reading.
Sandra Pasławska accompanied Jaromír on a metal drum repurposed from an old gas can. She ditched her rubber drumsticks and banged the instrument so loud that her thumbs began to bleed and the metal dented inwards, complimenting Jaromír’s strong vibrato that also reached inwards and then out.
At the opposite end of the tunnel, Heyme joined Luka and together they improvised a composition of highs and lows, accompanied by Tyko’s voice that filled in the mids.
It was happening and each area throughout the tunnel contributed a combustion that, together, created a composition that spilled out into the Žižkov evening.
And then out of the yellow lamp-lit tunnel, a pair of white headlights appeared in the distance—the patrol car.
Adéla ran to Tyko, warned him of the threat, and said that she could handle it. Tyko then gave Adéla his phone with the cryptic message from the Chief of Police and instructed her to persuade the patrol officers with the message if they should ask.
The cop car entered the tunnel, past the portable toilet, past the banners, past the Žižkov wine jug drinkers, past the smokers, and right into the sight of Tyko and Adéla.
The police rolled down the windows and starred straight into the happening. Adéla promptly ran over to them with a smile, her hands and arms covered in red paint, and showed them the message from the chief.
The air was tense, and this time, the musicians sat in silence, waiting to see what would happen.
The police looked around slowly, nodded, and drove straight out of the tunnel.
The crowd at the East end of the tunnel then signaled, “POOOZOOOORRRR!” and just like that it was echoed back from the west end of the tunnel, “POOOZOOOORRRR!”
Pictured: Anna Špirochová. Photo curtesy of Julia Orlova.
Anna Špirochová then replaced Jaromír and Thor Garcia replaced Tyko. Anna stretched her soft voice loud against the evening soundscape of the space as Sandra continued beating her bloody drum into a conundrum of sound & language rhythm.
“POOOZOOOORRRR!” people shouted.
“POOOZOOOORRRR!” people echoed.
Jo Blin then appeared with a home-made signpost with protests,
“I am a mass protest!”
“make the earth flat again!” “I do not have time for this”
“Better scared than sorry”
“POOOZOOOORRRR!” people shouted.
“POOOZOOOORRRR!” people echoed.
The tunnel became loud and bold, tense and happening.
And as the final readings came to a close at both ends of the tunnel, Tyko and Jaromír grabbed the OBJECT:PARADISE banners that were fit to each make-shift stage and began walking towards the center of the tunnel, reading loud in protest for a poetry that is always happening for the first time. Heyme accompanied the east end crowd and Sandra accompanied the west end crowd.
The protest grew louder and more tense.
“POOOZOOOORRRR!”
“POOOZOOOORRRR!”
And then, suddenly, the two groups converged at the center, each step bringing them closer to the shared heartbeat of the night. The crowd, no longer just spectators but part of the living, breathing poetry, merged into one communal entity. The banners waved like flags of victory as voices, instruments, and footsteps harmonized in a triumphant crescendo, as Tyko drew the celebrating to a close shouting,
“Tonight you have experienced the mystic visions of the intra! You are a poet! You are an artist! and you matter!”
Pictured: Tyko Say holding the OBJECT:PARADISE banner. Photo curtesy of Julia Orlova.
“POOOZOOOORRRR!”
The call reverberated through the tunnel, no longer a warning, but a celebration of what had been achieved. The tunnel, once just a passageway, had transformed into a vessel, its walls now marked by the echoes of a hundred voices.
In that moment, the noise subsided into a profound silence. The event had ended, but the energy lingered. People slowly dispersed back to Žižkov, carrying with them the shared experience, the sound, the poetry, and the protest that transcended words.
Tunnel Vision(s) wasn’t just a happening. It was a declaration—a statement that even in the most confined spaces, creativity can expand infinitely. It was a testament to resilience, to community, and to the undying spirit of OBJECT:PARADISE. As the last of the participants left the tunnel, they knew they had not only witnessed something special; they had become something special.
Reflections from the cast
How to birth a poem: First, we clean ourselves from our selves. Lose our identity, shed our skin. Go back to the blank slate we used to be when we were born into this world. Remember that some stains from our past cannot be erased but don’t fret, our poems, just like our bodies and minds, are never meant to be perfect.Second, we let our surroundings inspire us gradually. Other souls who are as lost as we are, looking for their own inspiration, usually make the most indelible imprints on us. A word, a doodle, a handprint, or even a flower’s thorn can leave a mark and guide or misguide our poems.Third, we reflect on our experience. Just take a moment and meditate on your words. Shout them at the top of your lungs when you find the flow.
- Soroush Sanaeinezhad
OBJECT:PARADISE is primarily a celebration of language, but for me is also a line connecting many microcosms in one huge space of creativity, in which everybody has the opportunity to share their energy. It’s a beautiful feeling to immerse yourself in all kinds of art, while being an audience member, a performer, a producer and a friend.
However, as a musician during the recent event I entered a trance that was a combination of a focus on music, stress, excitement, the desire to listen to poetry and the pain of my bleeding hand. It’s difficult to describe the feeling of all these factors together that affect you. Incredible.
- Sandra Pasławska
When we look at visual art, we only think of what we see before us and expect to feel some connection to the final work, but the process of creation is left as an afterthought. As an artist, it is frustrating to try to communicate with the viewer when they only see a tiny refined piece of the creative process. It was an incredible experience to put the entire process on display, to simultaneously take inspiration from the sound around me and communicate back my own visual interpretation of the words being spoken, the instruments, and the passers by.
- Palencar
In the transitory space of the Starý Vítkovský tunel, we dance ourselves into a chaotic tangle of white string. We weave our bodies between the stages, intertwining and moving between the lines of the road, of the poems, of the surrounding sounds. Our language is articulated movement, an offering of our bodies to the context in which we find ourselves. Though we are silent, our voices are witnessed; our strings spell out and stretch and reach and reflect.
We each individually explore the possibilities that our bodies and the string hold--the potentials and obstacles. We tell and interpret stories. Our intuitive and improvised movements ‘speak’ of the universal struggle to express and understand ourselves and others. The progression of the performance exposed the tendency to become tangled and that, in shared chaos, we find liberation and understanding. In meeting each other, we find release.
- Sasha Rose & Yeva Kupchenko
“POZOR!” The most frequented term of my night at the latest edition of OBJECT:PARADISE. As the daily commuters strolled, rolled, and pedaled through the Starý Vítkovský Tunel, they found that an unusual surge of life as poets, dancers and musicians had spilled onto their routine path. From the beginning it was clear that someone would have to take on the role of yelling caution as the public sped through so no one would get hurt--or bitterly call the cops on our operation. Brandishing an orange reflective vest, I became someone who looked official (if you ignore the Braník and cigarette in hand) and when the call was shouted, the crowd opened for the public to weave through. The poets took it as a call and response and ran after those who didn't pause to listen to their words. And so, “POZOR” commuters, poets are out to bring life to your daily routine.
- Hunter Andrews
Bang bang, POZOOOR, bang bang, du wap dudu wa, bang bang—the audience i mean the readers I mean the performers I mean the organizers I mean the FOCKIN COPS were all involved in this wild medley of casual beer sippin', verse reciting and cycling. I have been metamorphosed from and into various characters, beings and bugs; I have been inspired by crazed goddesses running away from the stage as they were bestowing truths plucked like rotten fruit from the thick air of the tunnel. I sat on the ground. I lied on the ground. I took root. Towards the end I had the time of my life marching back to the centre stage and reading as loud as I could high af.
- Jaromír Lelek
I was not sure I'd pull it off, playing solo for 2 hours with just a beat box. Absolutely exhausting. Figured I'd give it all I got, pushed to the limit and beyond. Due to no amp or effects I just concentrated to keep on playing to not stop the flow. The dancers were really great as I could see them reacting and interacting, this really kept me going. Pushed myself beyond what I thought possible, went into some trance. It was mad. Would not like to repeat the same way, with no stops. On the other hand, I was very happy to experience that I could pull it off. Gives me a boost for the future.
- Heyme Langbroek
The secret tunnel magnified to excruciating levels a supercharged atmosphere of beasts braying for ritual pandemonium and psychic dispossession. Blasts of pugnacious sax and febrile drumming drove the tension to an untenable torque, until all that remained was a ravenous clutching for straws amidst the caterwauling clash of civilizational contradictions and illusionary pantomimes that could only result in a cacophonous clattering climax that was little understood.
- Thor Garcia
In one word: Pozor. The accidental part of the audience takes on a different dimension when we are frequently very literally in their way, which could have been a problem but turned out to add a new dimension to it all, best summed up by the frequent yelling of the word pozor, which eventually found its way into a poem I composed on the spot, brought on by the pozor and long-ago memories of those few weeks I walked past an angry dog in the night on the way home every evening on my way home, framed by the sign “Pozor pes” and the promise in his bark he’d tear all the poems to pieces one of those days.
Also read an older poem that surprisingly connected more to this place then any of the others, since it’s about a road and the outsider creatures that populate it’s sideways. Because poems take place everywhere – and therefore should be read out loud everywhere.
.- Asgeir H Ingolfsson
I read of the Tarot, and our shared experience in these massively discombobulating times.And I started shouty, after having rehearsed subtle, and I had to rapidly reinvent myself on the spot. And almost of an instant a sense of being some kind of a mad, inspired prophet arose. Some small words got bigger, some big words got lost, but all the time I was watching this process, like an out of body experience where I was every smile and every grimace of confusion in front of me, and I saw the whole. Not in the smarty-pants-words, but in this eager human's eyes and gestures from a 'speaker's corner' soap box with one goal only. To spread love, laughter and this Poet-in-a-Black-Sweater's disarming-good-looks-for-a-man-his-age, in a dark tunnel, on a suitcase stage, trying hard not to lose his place on his firmly held, printed page.
I learnt that you can use a megaphone to whisper I love you.And that you can hold hands from a distance.And that people listen when you send out a warningAnd to not forget who or where you are whenever you feel the audiences' brains yawning.But the big takeaway, was the feeling of being togetherWith the sweetest bunch of revolutionaries this reluctant show-off ever bumped elbows with.
.- Michael Rowland
The domain of waste is often surrounded by a mist of disgust and alienation. Our performance sought to recast the fact of trash into a new rainbow of connotations. The performance opening poem “Harbingers of Trash” meant to bring out those awful sights and smells of uncontrolled trash waste into a context where it acquired an infuriating, yet hope-inducing demeanor and effectively moved away from using garbological language only in the context of disposal. The location for the reading was ideal: the tunnel echoes mimicked the long-lasting presence of synthetic trash and the tunnel itself was full of garbage, which enabled an interactive performance. Following the poem came a trash dance which was liberating. By becoming trash through the use of costumes, the expectations of the audience were hung on a limbo up in the air. Dancing as a trash couple, with several instances of sensual touch not only between each other, but also with the trash that was picked up throughout the performance, we felt incredibly sexy and empowered: a feeling probably very different from the initial expectations of our audience, who were probably revulsed by the dynamic paradox performance. The tunnel enabled free movement and no constraints were really felt. The performance was immersive for those attending the event and transient tunnel (st)rollers.
- Néa Zon & Stefan Fiedler
Special thank you to the cast of this curation: Tyko Say, Sandra Pasławska, Michael Rowland, Anna Spirochova, Thor Garcia, Asgeir H Ingolfsson, Jo Blin, Adéla Hrdličková, Stefan Fiedler, Jaromír Lilek, Heyme Langbroek, Anton Saller, Néa Zon, Yeva Kupchenko Sasha Rose, Cody Perk, Ágnes Popkorn, Soroush Sanaeinezhad, Palancar, Hunter Andrews, Anastasia Katsiokali, Vlad Go, Julia Orlova, Anastasia Rybalchenko & Medium 43.
Special thank you to all of the photographers who atteneded the happening and the events leading up to that special night in July: Julie Orlova, Robert Carrithers, Jan Černý, Sasha Honigman, and Vlad Go.
