AXONTORR is the Athens-based collaborative project of artists and musicians Simon Kounovský (FR) and Oliver Torr (CZ). Their originally distinct roles—Simon developing visuals and Oliver, a renowned musician and sound designer, heading the project’s musical component—gradually began to intertwine in significant ways. 

The exhibition DISPLACED WATER TANK 2 SCREENS SURROUND SOUND is a continuation of the residency of the duo Axontorr, during which the artists developed their intermedia approach to composition and performance. They concluded the residency with a presentation in the water cistern space at Žlutý Kopec in Brno, whose specific acoustic qualities became an important part of the sound design and approach to the final composition.  

The exhibition begins at this exact location. As if someone just pressed pause on a player between the performance and the exhibition. By transferring the situation from the reservoirs to the gallery, Axontorr is not trying to reconstruct it, but is another phase in a process that shifts and redefines the original situation. The core is missing, the remnants stand. All that's left is the sound, the image and the imprint of the place in the form of reverb. The fundamental change is the absence of performers in the work, which does not lead to an emptying of meaning, but rather to an emphasis on the work itself. Whereas in the concert presentation the Axontorr was the focus, the audio and video produced in real time were the means of action, and the reverberation was a natural part of the space of the water cistern, here these means act as an autonomous phenomenon whose temporality is open to the perception of the viewer present (the role changes and the viewer becomes the focus).  This principle resonates with Pauline Oliveros' concept of Deep Listening - an approach to listening that goes beyond passive reception to become a participatory, bodily and spatial experience. Axontorr approaches sound and image as a structuring element of space in which the listening subject becomes part of it. The reference to Pauline Oliveros is no coincidence. Her album Deep Listening was recorded in 1988 with Stuart Dempster and Panaiotis in the Fort Worden water tower in Washington, a space with a natural reverberation of up to 45 seconds. This unique acoustic character shaped the entire album and became an integral part of the compositions. The water cistern where Axontorr recorded has a reverberation time of 44 seconds.  

The installation works with the fragmentation and transformation of performative elements into a new spatio-temporal frame. It is not about digital idolatry or any form of new media ritual. Like traditional sacred sites,  it creates a space for encounters with the self. The two-channel projection, synchronised with a four-channel soundtrack, creates a situation where sound, image and visitor movement are intertwined in a shifting relationship. The central element - a black rectangle on the floor - is a zone that, when activated, produces a semi-precise sonic imprint of the waterworks by measuring the impulse response.  

The dynamics of light and movement in the video do not lead to specific meanings, but together with the sound they create a field for individual projection and perception. The exhibition thus explores not the reconstruction of the performative act, but its shift in time - not as a trace or a document, but as an open experience that is only established in the presence of the viewer. It is not a fixed composition, but a situation in constant constitution - a process in which sound is an active element of spatial articulation and the visitor is the catalyst for its actualisation.  

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AXONTORR: 

DISPLACED WATER TANK 2 SCREENS SURROUND SOUND 

19 March 2025 – 25 April 2025  

Curator: Ondřej Merta 

Opening: 18 March 2025, 6 PM 

Graphic design: AXONTORR 

Photoreport: Tatiana Drgonec Dižová

IG AXONTORR: @axontorr

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