We welcome you to the release of an audiovisual installation by artist Oleksandra Kopelyan at roam project space on 3rd of February.

03.02.2024

from 3 pm until 9 pm
Performance: 7 pm

Lindenstraße 91, 
10969 Berlin

Open by appointment until 18.02.

Heraclea: A Hauntological Research is a multidisciplinary installation composed of field recordings, music, collages, and digital art. Taking as a basis the philosopher and cultural theorist Mark Fisher’s understanding of hauntology (“haunt(ing)” and “ontology”), it attempts to capture and reconstruct not an existing place, but rather its impression in one’s memory, while evoking a feeling of nostalgia in those who have never visited it. The creation of ‘fake memories’ is performed through the combination of auditory, visual, olfactory, and tactile inputs, by affecting the audience’s senses. The resulting space is an artificial biome, a fogged oasis filled with the scents of wood and sea, or a museum of sounds.    

The name Heraclea comes from that of a headland in the Black Sea (Heracles peninsula) at the southwestern portion of Crimea, where the modern city of Sevastopol is located. Since 2014, the territory has been occupied by the Russian Federation, however, it is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. 

Oleksandra Kopelyan is a sound artist, performer, and author of the music project growthrings. The main tools of sound practice are voice, field recordings, archive recordings, radio interference, synthesized and acoustic timbres. Vocal techniques include glossolalia, authentic folk singing, and the digital layering of voices. Recurring subjects: water, rituals, chthonian entities, nature, and a world without humans. Oleksandra is a participant in the Field Recordings and Found Sounds laboratory within the online residency Unthinking/Unlearning (HSE & Universität der Künste Berlin, 2021), a former member of Ukrainian folklorist Natalia Serbina’s ensemble Дукач (Dukach), and a current member of Bulcanto (Berlin-based Bulgarian choir). 

This project is part of the Vorspiel 2024 program
This project is in cooperation with the Artist at Risk / Goethe Institute

Photos by Andreas Baudisch