#offcity

Kukačka (“Cuckoo”) is an Ostrava-based platform for presenting contemporary art outside a gallery environment. Inspired by the way cuckoos act as parasites on other birds’ nests, the initiative aims to intervene in the urban public space, to control that space, to use it, or simply to coexist with it. The central theme of the 7th edition of the project is defined by the motto "Rules of the Game". The Offcity Collective has got the honour to take part in the art festival and has created a public intervention and happening at the ground of a parking place in the centre of the town.

The intervention responds to the issue of rules that restrict our free movement and natural behavior in public space. An information signpost with detailed parking rules, including a detailed list of bans, enters the dialogue with the other one, which makes these rules relative. The city is our living room. But how freely can we enjoy and inhabit it? How public is the public space of Ostrava? 

Created together with Josef Čevora, Vít Hoigr and Marta Misíková (Offcity Collective).

Technological essence of this installation is reverse playback of binaural audio recordings in a particular place, made within a particular situation. It mediates a feeling for a site, someone’s emotion, memory, experience or even desire. However, not visually, but through a told and heard message. This gently manipulated reality can intensify visitors’ imagination and their ability to “untie” themselves from their stereotypical perception of the gallery space.