Spadochron 2019, Macondo, WROCŁAW

Macondo 16-18.08.2019

collage by Lena Czerniawska

Human.Error, Soundance Festival, Berlin, 29.06.2019

Human.Error, Soundance Festival, Berlin, 29.06.2019

with Paulina Owczarek on baritone saxophone
and Lena Czerniawska Drawing
photo Christina Marx

Human. Error.¹

Error has turned animals into men; might truth be capable of turning man into an animal again?” Friedrich Nietzche, Human all too Human

In the online poll on debate.org over the question “Are humans the greatest mistake made by nature?” 53% of respondents said ‘Yes’, 47% voted ‘No’.

Popular science media report that “‘500-Million-Year-Old 'Mistake' Led to Humans”.

In many myths of creation, trickster – an undefinable cultural figure or force - creates by mistake. “Trickster creates through destruction and succeeds through failure .“ He “dabbles in the creation of the world that will be and provides food, tools and clothing for the people that will inhabit the world”. Trickster is also a powerful transformer, but seems not to be aware of it. (Larry Ellis,Trickster: Shaman of the Liminal)

In the moves of creating and recreating and perfecting ourselves, our bodies, and the world we are inevitably prone to lapses, unforeseeable consequences, gaps, omissions, chance moves – that might all be categorized as mistakes.

In our piece we want to ask about the nature of mistake. Can we say for certain that something is or was a mistake? Is a mistake a valid category at all if we cannot see the wider picture and the far off consequences? We want to play with the idea that if human race is a result of a tiny genetic misstep, then who or what would human be if 500 million years ago something went differently ? Would we have tails and claws? And amphibians would have their underwater cities and croak programming language?

We are conditioned to experience mistakes as something wrong, something to be ashamed of, something that we expect punishment for, yet we are utterly unable to foresee the consequences of our failures, and we forget about the fact that they are crucial for learning. When we make mistakes, we shrug and say that we are human. As bats are

batty and slugs are sluggish, our own species is synonymous with screwing up.

Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error

All erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters, must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstance should they be allowed to spread unchecked.

Mao Zedong, Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957), in The Little Red Book, 1st pocket edition, pp. 26-27

1 Concept: Anna Bogdanowicz, Lena Czerniawska, Paulina Owczarek

Drawing: Lena Czerniawska, Playing baritone saxophone: Paulina Owczarek, Moving: Anna Bogdanowicz

Silent Duo. Macondo 24.05.2019

Silent Duo. with Lena Czerniawska
Macondo, 24.05.2019 Wrocław
fot. Maciej Szłapka

1,766.8035 Acres of Paradise etc - oldies from 2015

Found some oldies and thought of sharing them after all:

FreeVolous Improvisations was a cycle of improvised events combining sound, movement, text and any possible medium that came up on the way, in tricksterish, playful manner.
It happenned once a month in club spaces in Wrocław.
FreeVolous Improvs vol 2 featured
Thomas Kolarczyk on double bass and Anna Bogdanowicz moving.

Kolarczyk/Bogdanowicz Duo

FreeVolous Improvs vol 3, 05.03.2015, featured
Michał Biel on baritone saxophone and Anna Bogdanowicz moving

 Biel/Bogdanowicz Duo

And another bit from FREEvolous Improvs no 8 in Sanatorium Kultury. 30.07.2015 with Michał Rupniewski on violin

Rupniewski/Bogdanowicz Duo


 Another bit from our FREEvolous Improvs meeting on 30.07. 2015 in Sanatorium Kultury. This time Adam Webster and Anna Bogdanowicz in a duo that started off with a headline from a paper which would be in English "1,766.8035 Acres of Paradise". Enjoy!

1,766.8035 Acres of Paradise

Human.Error - Soundance Festival. Berlin. 29.06.2019

graphics: Lena Czerniawska

By invitation of Jenny Haack, artictic director of Soundance Festival.

Drawing: Lena Czerniawska
Baritone Saxophone: Paulina Owczarek
Movement: Anna Bogdanowicz

Human. Error.

Error has turned animals into men; might truth be capable of turning man into an animal again?” Friedrich Nietzche, Human all too Human

In the online poll on debate.org over the question “Are humans the greatest mistake made by nature?” 53% of respondents said ‘Yes’, 47% voted ‘No’.

Popular science media report that “‘500-Million-Year-Old 'Mistake' Led to Humans”.

In many myths of creation, trickster – an undefinable cultural figure or force - creates by mistake. “Trickster creates through destruction and succeeds through failure .“ He “dabbles in the creation of the world that will be and provides food, tools and clothing for the people that will inhabit the world”. Trickster is also a powerful transformer, but seems not to be aware of it. (Trickster: Shaman of the Liminal, Larry Ellis [in: Studies in American Indian Literatures, Series 2, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Winter 1993), pp. 55-68)

In the moves of creating and recreating and perfecting ourselves, our bodies, and the world we are inevitably prone to lapses, unforeseeable consequences, gaps, omissions, chance moves – that might all be categorized as mistakes.

In our piece we want to ask about the nature of mistake. Can we say for certain that something is or was a mistake? Is a mistake a valid category at all if we cannot see the wider picture and the far off consequences? We want to play with the idea that if human race is a result of a tiny genetic misstep, then who or what would human be if 500 million years ago something went differently ? Would we have tails and claws? And amphibians would have their underwater cities and croak programming language?

We are conditioned to experience mistakes as something wrong, something to be ashamed of, something that we expect punishment for, yet we are utterly unable to foresee the consequences of our failures, and we forget about the fact that they are crucial for learning.

When we make mistakes, we shrug and say that we are human. As bats are batty and slugs are sluggish, our own species is synonymous with screwing up. Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error

All erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters, must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstance should they be allowed to spread unchecked.

Mao Zedong, Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957), in The Little Red Book, 1st pocket edition, pp. 26-27

Silent Duo in Macondo - Aeroplane #75. 24.05.2019

Aeroplane is a series of improvised gigs in Wroclaw club Macondo. Aeroplane#74: vocal concert by Ewa Żurakowska
Silent Duo: drawing - Lena Czerniawska, movement - Anna Bogdanowicz 

DISQUIET at MUSICA PRIVATA, Łódź, 10.11.2018

The DISQUIET Crew at Musica Privata Festival inside the Factory of Arts in Łódź, 10.11.208

clip of Disquiet at Musica Privata 2018

photos by Agnieszka Jakuszak

KIO at Ad Libitum Women Alarm!, Warsaw 25.10.2018

 Making of with Charlotte Hug and the rest of the greatest KIO crew, photos by the wondrous Brianne Curran: