Robert Niziński

R.N (1).jpg

Robert is a creative director, writer, musician, composer, and co-creator of Polish experimental band, Księżyc (“The Moon”). Rooted in Slavonic, folk and minimal music, his self-titled album of Księżyc, issued by OBUH Records, has been qualified in Poland for a list of the most significant records of the 90s. Since their reunion in 2014, the group recorded and toured locally and overseas, being a guest of several big festivals in Europe and America (Unsound in NY and Toronto). Engaged in human centered design, environmental and community innovations for improved sustainability, Robert has been the author of numerous soundscapes and audio-video installations, music for film, theatre, performances and multimedia projects.

Robert has a deep interest in exploring the healing potential of sounds, psychoacoustics, art therapy, rituals and the gongs. In recent years he has collaborated on social campaigns for hospices and aid centers for family-less kids. In November 2020, Robert collaborated with the B-Corp Summit in Poland to create artistic content on the theme of “Feel the Planet, Feel the People!”. Robert is a lover / enthusiast of musical intuitionism, analogues, intelligence of mushrooms, and John Cage.

 
 
Asset 65.png
 
 

COMPOSITIONS

LISTEN

Lux Sonore (Trans. The Sound Emitting Light) Toward the Accordance

For bass clarinet and organismic analogue synthesizer Lyra

READ

  1. Listen – guided poetic meditation

2.   Response with Re / REimagine

 
 
 

LUX SONORE (Trans. The Sound Emitting Light) Toward the Accordance

What is the condition of humans in 2020/2021?

Are they still in the focus of attention? Should they be?

It's windy. It's wavy. It’s foggy. It's gloomy.

In the period of time when the biggest authorities are failing, when people have to fight for their basic rights, when some of us try to survive, and the others try to expand the borders of consumption beyond, reaching the summits of absurdity, when the economy gets crazy, when power manipulates people, instead of serving them, is there anything to trust or to be sure about?

Lux Sonore / Toward the Accordance intentionally has been created around the idea of tuning in and searching for harmony, along with the concept of the elements / movements of the metaphorical Symphony, represented by the many social initiatives involved in the SIX Wayfinder 2020.

Once I shared my previous work with my good friend. I asked her, what were her feelings after this music experience? How did she resonate with it? And she answered: I felt the Light. It was very insightful for me.

Destination: Harmony, Unity.

I wish my works can stimulate calmness-hunting and way-of-life-finding, and I believe they can mirror the process of getting ready for a journey which is cyclical and repetitive, like breathing, inhale and exhale, like night and day, like ebb and flow… What is the destination, one could ask? I would say: Harmony, Unity. And wish you a good trip.

...

We are overwhelmed. 

We are overloaded.

We are tired.

We worry.

We are uncertain.

We miss each other.

We are scared of each other.

We suffer.

We doubt.

 

Are we brave?

Are we stupid?

We are emotional.

We try to act rational.

What do we trust?

What matters? Values?

Do we follow them?

 

In or out of the system.

Integrity has plenty of names.

Do we feel more like 'patients' than ‘'citizens’?

 

Or perhaps like 'slaves'?

Can we tune in with reality?

Do we feel the planet we live on?

Do we feel the people?

Do we feel anything?

Joy? Love?

Tension? Hate?

Burnout? Sadness?

People need Hope.

People need Light.

People need Horizon.

People need Direction.

People need Change.

 

Can we get closer, approach harmony without making waves?

(in this idiomatic meaning of conflicts on the way)

 
Asset 65.png
 
 
 
 
  1. Listen

Since so often even the alarm sirens don't wake us up, people nowadays need this gentle awakening. To reconnect with our roots, find their place in the world, reconstruct relation with nature, environment, and obviously with other humans. Rediscovery of the values essential for our good life seem to be a crucial issue and on many levels universal.

We need to learn what we did or still do wrong, and how to improve the quality of our life and the condition of our planet. We have to see how vulnerable the world is, how overexploited by us, how tired with humans. And we must reconnect with other people too. To feel them as life companions, and also partners who are able to find the same goals in the responsible care and rebirth process.

Each of us tries to find our own path. It's in our nature. But sometimes we get lost. We forget what is important, what really counts in life. We start to live in a coma, day by day nearing the emptiness, lack of sense and motivation.

My gratitude to SIX for moderating the research across the world and collecting a variety of insights that shows modern people’s condition, particularly around pandemic time.

"Listen..." is a call for individual reflection and act. For deeper contact with our ecosystem and universe, for awareness of superior order, and focus on harmony. The prize is high. Time to move on!

A Call

The significant part of acting, playing and living is listening.

Listening to yourself, matched with listening to everything around you - your environment. It’s a meditation - inner journey into your human creature related to the world. The universe begins and ends within you.

How do you feel about it? Can you do something for your wellbeing and make the world a better place?

*

Listen… (do not speak)

Listen to your home (if you have one)

Listen to your heart (if it’s not muted or on stand-by)

 Listen what fishes are silent about (if you didn’t frighten them)

Listen to the birds (what they gossip about?) 

Listen what the trees whisper about (if they are still close to you)

Listen what the stones remembering as a given pleasure or harm

(if they were not swearing to keep the secret)

Listen to your road (it's the one you go on) 

Listen to what is inside us and what is over us! (they call it universe)

Listen how “we” and “I” sound like (have you ever suffered from solitude?)

Listen to the difference (it's loud!)

Listen to “we” as a multiplication of “I” (easy math - right?)

Listen to the wind (moving air brings changes)

Listen to the fire (it caresses and destroys)

Listen to the water (it's an elixir of life)

Listen to the Earth (how can you enjoy gravitation?) 

Listen to the wholeness (big big time!)

Listen to every single organ and particles in you (do you know all their names by heart?)

Listen to each atom of your body (are they deserving your gratitude?)

…  

Listen to your loneliness (are you really that alone?)

Listen to the other people (let them bring themselves to your life)

Listen to love (make your bell ringing!)

Listen to hate (just for fullness)

Listen to anger (with understanding where it comes from)

Listen to the light (sounds impossible?)

Listen to the darkness (for comparison)

Listen to the pain (how relief can sound like?)

Listen to poverty (here never ‘less is more’)

Listen to richness (what it means for you?)

Let them all sound out…

What the planet Earth sounds about?

 …

Listen.

Resonate.

And act. Now.

Or Later.

(Listen: Why not now?)

 
Asset 65.png
 
 
 
 

2. RESPONSE with Re / REimagine

Stream of resonant words for our Wayfinding

For rhythmic declamation (even dance-like)

SIX stands behind this poem.

SIX is in this poem, SIX constructs this poem.

(On purpose it consists of 6 blocks + ending/new beginning, and each block is a 6-word module.)

The study of SIX's materials collected from around the world shows how important REflection and REsponse is for our loud and quiet, frequently hidden needs. 

RE poem is an insight into my mind, emotions, consciousness and subconsciousness. It’s a sharing of a stream of resonant words which reflect our reality. It articulates important alerts for the whole world, and still belongs to the micro-cosmos of individual human experience in a cycle of life, including rebirth.

Someone may say it's a hint.

Someone else will say it's a kind of manifesto.

You can find here an expression of the process of the Wayfinding, the core of which is REaction, in a wider perspective through - for example - the building of regenerative society and economy.

This REsponse employs REimagination, expresses the need of REdefining our goals and what matters, to face both - big, global and individual local challenges, with an approach based on the merge of the meaning of life with REsponsibility around the common good.

… 

resonance

resilience

reconnect

resistance

recapture

rebuilding

… 

reset

refill 

remake

restore

redo

rebirth

… 

recycle

remedy

recover

renewal

remaster

redial

… 

rewind

rethink

release

remind

retrieve

recall

… 

restart

relief

reunion

remote

retouch

refine

regret

remove

reveal

regard

retry

respect

… 

redemption 

return

 
 

THE FINAL SYMPHONY

‘Sounding Together’

This 25-minute piece ‘Sounding Together’ from chaos to catharsis, was created by six Artist Composers in response to the stories, pain, hope, and actions from around the world, collected during SIX Wayfinder 2020. Their collaboration spanned four months across time-zones, only ever meeting over Zoom, using a collage of iphone recordings and makeshift studio set ups during lockdown, from Singapore, Poland, Greece, UK and Canada. The piece is a collective inquiry into the question: "What is the shape of social innovation in urgent times and what sounds can help us reimagine our way forward together?".

 

More from Robert Niziński

Za Siódmą Górą (Z7G)

AUDIO-VISUAL (C)REATION entitled BEHIND THE SEVENTH MOUNTAIN concert”

Full HD version of audio-video installation is available here (on YouTube private channel):

 
 
 
(…) Since 2012, together with the invaluable Bartek Kowalski, he (Robert Niziński) explores the possibility of a quasi-holographic simulation of presence.”
— from CCA VideoRoom / note about artist

I thought that perhaps this work is worth sharing especially now, in time of pandemic obstacles, isolation, when we operate in our very own separated capsules, when real meeting is not doable or just so often only illusory.

It’s about suspended, apparent functioning, presence, and action.

The AUDIO-VISUAL (C)REATION was presented for the first time during the International Biennale ARSENALLE 2012, Kiev, Ukraine. Our band - Za Siódmą Górą was invited to play a concert there. Actually the A/V installation I conceptualized as it was a sort of back-up in case we would be not able to reach Kiev due to complicated transportation, formal procedures, and serious obstacles on the borders. 

In the end the audio-video work was presented in a gallery hall as big-screen-loop-projection, simulating real performance (silhouettes of musicians in natural 1:1 scale). And we also performed a live show on the stage according to the previous schedule.

This ‘video documentation’ is a simulation of preparation for a concert on the computer-generated stage.

The soundtrack is taken from the real concert of Z7G recorded the day before the video shoot.

The video is dedicated for big screen (wall) projection that allows to create an illusion of authentic presence of the musicians of Z7G band – actors appearing in the video. It’s crucial to achieve 1:1 scale of the artists who ‘play without playing notes’ in this piece. Also, a good discreet sound system (speakers) should accompany this presentation.

The work has been shown already:

  • Ukraine, Kiev – 1st International Art Biennale (premiere)

  • Poland, Warsaw – CCA Ujazdowski Castle / VIDEO ROOM

  • Austria – Klang Haus Festival

  • Poland, Sokołowsko – Festival ‘Sanatorium of Sound‘

I hope you will enjoy it, as it’s another outfit of Polish underground scene from OBUH - the same label that made Księżyc (The Moon) shining.  

 

Księżyc (trans. The Moon)

Księżyc – Boiler Room In Stereo 2016 (concert)

 
 

Księżyc “MM” — Boiler Room In Stereo 2016 (1 song)

 

I’d also like to invite you to watch the Księżyc concert in the Boiler Room in Stereo. It's our 2nd incarnation, after reunion.

The Moon actually has been occupying quite a big part of my life, and still is my place for creation, for mutual experiments with my bandmates, and for exquisite communication without using words so much.

Welcome to the world of rituals, fairy tales, surreal dreams, sometimes beautiful, sometimes scary… Enjoy!