Heinali & Olbram Pavlíček: Aves rubrae | SHAPE+
As part of a residency hosted by the MeetFactory art centre in Prague in fall of 2023, Ukrainian music producer Heinali aka Oleh Shpudeiko collaborated with Czech visual artist Olbram Pavlíček on a new music video based on Heinali's composition titled Aves rubrae commissioned in 2023 by MoMA in New York to commemorate one year since the invasion of Ukraine.
„When I listened to Heinali's track for the first time, the sound of organs inspired me to create a vertical video as an examination of spaces with seemingly random narrations. The video comprises three levels: The first one centres around the notion of unlocking, the second one focuses on monumentality, and the third one is an examination of a core. I projected some of my interests in sculpting and put seemingly unrelated objects together to create small side story lines.” — Olbram Pavlíček
Olbram Pavlíček received his bachelor's degree at the Supermedia Studio at Prague's Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design. At the same university, he also completed a master's program in the Painting Studio. His works were exhibited both in the Czech Republic (City Surfer Office, Prague; Berlinskej model, Prague; PAF Gallery, Olomouc; Galerie NTK, Prague), as well as in Europe (Funkhouse, Berlin; HotDock project space, Bratislava; Werkschauhalle, Leipzig; Photopub Project Space, Ljubljana). His works are represented in the Havrlant Art Collection. He is co-founder of the internationally active artistic and curatorial group Proto Gallery Systems.
„I perform my music using a modular synthesiser, which I set up or "patch" based on artistic research incorporating medieval polyphonic techniques. My piece "Aves rubrae" which means "red birds" in Latin, was also created using this patch. It was improvised and recorded in one take on my modular system as a commission for The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Like the organa tripla of the Notre Dame polyphony, it features three voices: two upper voices with intricate melodies generated by the machine scurrying over the slow-moving drones of the lower voice. However, unlike the Notre Dame polyphony, composed for grand church celebrations, "Aves rubrae" has an eschatological tone that I find more fitting, given the recent events. The piece references "Red Birds Will Fly Out Of The East And Destroy Paris In A Night" (title allegedly referencing one of the apocalyptic prophecies of Nostradamus) by Coil, paying homage to one of the most influential artists whose music shaped me during my teenage years.” — Heinali
Oleh Shpudeiko is a Ukrainian music composer and sound artist who records as Heinali. He specializes in electronic music and modular synthesis, taking inspiration from Early music and medieval polyphony. Heinali writes music for games, films, choreography performances, creates sound art installations, and performs live shows. Amongst his works is award-winning music for the video game BOUND by Plastic/Sony Santa Monica, the 2020 album MADRIGALS shortlisted for the Shevchenko National Prize, and compositions and sound art installations commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU) and The Museum of Odessa Modern Art (MSIO).
He has a long history of live performances, including appearances at venues and festivals such as NEXT in Bratislava, Primavera in Barcelona, Unsound in Krakow, Illuminate in Adelaide, Ephemera in Warsaw; Kyiv's Plivka and Mystetskyi Arsenal and Ukraine's Next Sound. Since 2019, Oleh has been a co-author and co-host, together with Alexey Shmurak, of the Ukrainian АШОШ educational platform featuring a podcast series, vlog, and lectures, covering a wide range of music and sound-related topics in an accessible language, such as early music history and theory, phenomenology of groove, bodily expression in electronic music, music as violence and sound as a weapon.
Heinali is an artist supported through SHAPE+ platform in 2023/2024. The residency took place in September 2023 in Prague, Czech Republic and the collaboration between the artists continued remotely until November 2023. SHAPE+ is a three-year initiative co-funded by the European Union and supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
Credits
Heinali – Aves rubrae
Music: Heinali
Video: Olbram Pavlíček
Audio mastering: Dominik Gajarský
All rights reserved © 2023
Links
Olbram Pavlíček www.instagram.com/w_lfr_m234u/
Heinali www.instagram.com/heinalimusic/
MeetFactory www.meetfactory.cz
SHAPE+ www.shapeplatform.eu