Kruno Jošt

During nonconsecutive three months artist in residency in Halland region of Sweden, a research was conducted around the problematic toxic sediment created by extensive industrial history of the Borås city on the Viskan river as a part of proposals for the theme of artistic “ecological literacy”.

During residency, for the project purposes Viskan was visited on many occasion. Canoe travel was undertaken to collect samples of the river that were later used to examine microbiological life of the river.

As known from scientific research, some forms of toxicity can be remediated with microorganisms so this was taken as an inspiration to look into ways of enlarging their numbers and activity locally.

Microorganisms can be influenced trough certain sound frequencies in certain volumes that in some cases enlarges their number in shorter time, and without any unwanted effects to environment.

After conducting a research on sound frequencies and its influences on observed microorganisms in the collected samples some of them were designed for the informance (informative performance) on the river itself.

Canoe was arranged into a vessel that can take one participants on the river trip. This canoe had an installation for playing sounds beneficial for the bacteria, but was also tailored for each participant to get into a state of appreciation of the river. At the same time participants could release what is known as Miracle Enzyme, organic compound beneficial for the microorganisms that was created in a prior workshop. An intimate visual reference was tailored for each individual observance of Viskan river and its inhabitants, with accompanying sound and information about micro and macro cosmos.

Research and performative action were executed during Art Inside Out residency Between the Rains in region Halland, Sweden in 2022.

Whole photo-log can be seen below

Photo of a found object, an oak tree leaf that has fallen on the snow. Radiated by the sun, leaf has accumulated enough energy to melt its own image in inverse, a sort of its own cast in the snow.

Photo is a part of  Minor Disturbances with participation of following artists: Rita Cachão, Henry Collins, Edith Doove, Bruno Duarte, Margarete Jahrmann, Kruno Jošt, Jason Karaindros, Robert Maddox-Harle, Ollivier Moreels & Jean-Louis Vincendeau, Sana Murrani,Guiherme Pontes, Michael Punt,Aparna Sharma and Paul Towey.

Inspired by Charles Ives vision of spatially distributed creativity in his unfinished Universe Symphony, The Faculty of Minor Disturbances (FMD) sent out an invitation to create a minor disturbance as we corralled the forces of the universe together with 2I/Borisov, an interstellar comet which visited the solar system.

Ives’s The Unanswered Question was said to be written under the influence of by the New England writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

See participating works here >>