Inside 'Grotto Far From The Sea'
Photo reportage from the exhibition by the text group Orbīta at the Zuzeum Art Centre
Exhibition Grotto Far From the Sea (07.06.2024–25.08.2024) brings together several works from different periods by the text group Orbīta – or, more precisely, new versions of previously realised ideas and objects created specially for this exhibition. The impulse behind the creation of these works was the artists’ interest in the nature of text and forms of its existence.
Grotto Far From the Sea is an invitation to a meditative walk, to drift between flickering revelations and tune in to a receding yet perceptible wave. In the selected installations, ordinary everyday items are used to perform a function not typical to them – the transmission of a poetic message. The exhibition also involves such actants as sunlight and airflow.
Orbīta is a collective of poets and multimedia artists from Latvia. Its members are Semjons Haņins, Artūrs Punte, Vladimirs Svetlovs and Sergejs Timofejevs. The project was established in 1999. In its work, Orbīta depends on the synthesis and interaction of text, sound and image. Although the presence of text is not a necessary condition, often the authors’ own poetic texts serve as the impulse for the creation of the works. Originally the project’s participants were brought together by the idea of a common publication. This was realised in the guise of several almanacs and many bilingual poetry collections published by Orbīta. In parallel, experiments were carried out with different formats: the performative format (appearances together with musicians and the crystallisation of the idea of “poetry performance”), sound art (several audio records, sound art installations) as well as the merging of text and the moving image (video-poetry). Later, Orbīta expanded its field of activity towards the creation of art objects and installations.
The exhibition Grotto Far From the Sea takes place during the 25th anniversary year of Orbīta’s existence. We invite you to have a look at the photo reportage made there by well-known Latvian photographer Ansis Starks.
Logos. 2021/2024. In this absolutely summery work that is entirely dependent on sun and its activity, Orbita strives to reflect the relationship between inside and outside in the guise of a glittering play of words and meanings. The text, which takes the form of dictionary entries on windows, is placed on the side of the exhibition space, and light continuously creates and destroys its visual appearance. The light falls on specially-made stencils – dictionary entries that have been slightly modified by Orbita. There are four of them – "stikls" (glass), "rāmis" (frame), "gaisma" (light) and "ēna" (shadow). Here is one of the translations: "Glass. A uniform, amorphous, hard material, on which one sometimes rests one's forehead". The pilot version of the work was first realized and exhibited in Pavilosta at the residency and gallery PaiR in 2021
Radiowall. 2012/2024. Audio-poetry installation Radiowall is a sound panorama formed by 80 radio receivers placed on a wall, playing local radio stations, poems recorded by Orbita poets, sounds recorded in various cities as well as short musical fragments written by composer Linda Leimane. First exhibited at the Cēsis Art Festival (Cēsis, 2012). Since 2020, Radiowall is part of the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art
The Weight of Voice. 2024. The idea for the installation is borrowed from the electromechanical performance Motopoiesis*, which Orbita has performed both in Latvia and abroad. The main principle of Motopoiesis is that the voice of the performing poet by itself controls the electrical signal which activates different mechanisms of sound generation. The new work is the continuation of this idea on a different level, where the same principle has been transferred from the performance to an object – a kinetic sound installation. Four poems-instructions are played, whose sound in turn affects the equilibrium of objects on the surface, thus creating an endlessly generative sound installation. In a sense, it can be perceived as a kinetic model of the text-group Orbita itself or any other collective project
The Twinkling Crystal of Revelation. 2015/2024. In the installation The Twinkling Crystal of Revelation twenty fans, together with a current of air, carry a constantly changing and twinkling message – a text programmable on their blades. Equipped with LED elements, the fans generate a text which peers, hums, rustles and constantly changes, imbuing elementary sentence structures with ever new sequences of meaning
This work was partially inspired by such mystical revelations as signs in the sky and the tradition of oracles to deliver their prophecies in an ephemeral, obscure form. The pilot version of the work was first realised and exhibited on a more intimate scale in Jūrmala in the summer of 2015 in the international exhibition My Heart is a Tiger, which marked the opening of Art Station Dubulti
Two Sonnets from Laputa. 2015/2024. In their installation Two Sonnets from Laputa the artists have compiled a text from everyday objects – according to all the characteristics of a sonnet, its strophic and rhythmic structures. From May to November 2015, the installation was shown in Ornamentalism. Latvian Contemporary Art, a satellite exhibition of the Venice Art Biennale. This is the first time the installation is exhibited in Latvia
PS: As part of the exhibition 'Grotto Far from the Sea', the text-group Orbīta invites everybody to a special screening of the film 'Motopoiesis' and a meeting with the authors. The film is created as a collection of 12 poems in different media – as a recording of a conceptual performance. Free admission with prior registration on zuzeum.com, limited seats available. July 16, 6 PM, Zuzeum, The Ear, 3rd floor.
Another work by Orbīta, the installation “From the Air,” can be seen until 27.07 at “Dūrmuiža” in Bīldene, at the open-air exhibition “Art in the Forest, in the Meadow, and at the Horizon” presented by the nomadic gallery energART.
