Lucid Dream of Mr. William Heerlein Lindley

"The broadcast and site-specific installation is a hommage to the man, who effected the improvement of cultural, political, health and sanitary condition of life and contributed to the shift towards the concept of modernity in Prague and several cities of Central and Eastern Europe.The composition and sound installation aims to re-animate the complex of terrestial, celestial and subterrestrial levels of Prague water networks: it's gutters, drinking water pipes, rivers, underground creeks, rain. It is reflecting the process of tranformation, water pollution, sedimentation, recycling, purification and trans-coding of elements, culturaly and chemicaly."

Location: The Old Sewage Cleaning Works, Prague (Ekotechnické museum)

Date: November 10, 2009, proposed schedule: 6 - 9:30 pm CET (5 - 8:30 pm GMT)

EBU live satelite broadcast: 8:30 - 9:30 pm CET (7.30 - 8:30 pm GMT)

Czech Radio 3 - Vltava live broadcast: 9.00 - 9:30 pm CET (8:00 - 8:30 pm GMT)

AUDIO A VIDEO stream LIVE : 18:00 - 21:30 (CET)

International co-production:

SWR, Deutschlandradio Kultur, Czech Radio, Zipp - Czech German Cultura Projects / rádio d-cz, EBU

With the support of: The Old Sewage Cleaning Station Prague, Transit-Display, Institute of Intermedia, Film and Television Faculty Prague.

Media support: A2 biweekly, Respekt weekly.

Live broadcast and public presentation of the ongoing project The Favorite Prague Sounds, dedicated to field recording, aural urbanism, phonography and psychogeography of Prague. Part of the project "radio d-cz", realized in the framework of Zipp-German-Czech Cultural projects, an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

Location: The Old Sewage Plant is a part of the historical Prague sewerage system, designed and built in district of Bubeneč in the years 1895 - 1906. The plant was in service until 1967, when a new plant was opened and is now accessible for public as an outstanding industrial heritage monument.

The site-specific sound installation and performance reflects the architectural complex, it`s acoustic qualities, conceptual and historical framework of the surrounding, including the landscape, the technology - screens, sand trap and sedimentation reservoirs - hidden underground in a vast labyrinth of catacombs. The building of Old Sewage Plant represents a neural nod, integrated into the waste water draining system of the city of Prague.

The architect of the The Old Sewage Plant was British - German engineer William Heerlein Lindley (1853 -1917). He worked together with his father on a number of projects in Europe and was a renowned engineer on the turn of the centuries. His specialization was the construction and reconstruction of drinking water and sewage water system in many towns across Europe. Between 1881 and 1889 he supervised the construction of waterworks in Warsaw, designed by his father in 1876-8. He designed and oversaw the construction of the sewage works in Prague, built between 1895 and 1906. It the architect of the water supply system of (among other places) Saint Petersburg, Kaunas, Magdeburg, Frankfurt, Bucurest, Craiova and delivered the project for water supply system in Baku. In 1909 designed a water and sewerage system for Lodz and Wloclawek.

The broadcast and site-specific installation is a hommage to the man, who effected the improvement of cultural, political, health and sanitary condition of life and contributed to the shift towards the concept of modernity in Prague and several cities of Central and Eastern Europe.The composition and sound installation aims to re-animate the complex of terrestial, celestial and subterrestrial levels of Prague water networks: it's gutters, drinking water pipes, rivers, underground creeks, rain. It is reflecting the process of tranformation, water pollution, sedimentation, recycling, purification and trans-coding of elements, culturaly, chemicaly.

Site-specific performative installation includes several technological media and tools, to contribute to the dramaturgy of event:

1. Live microphone pick-up from the building's underground sedimentation channels (reverberant water sounds) and from the sedimentation chamber immediately below the museum main hall.

2. Kinetic water-tank installation inside the main hall - essentially 3 plastic tanks filled with water in which the flow is stirred by a small electric motor. Different sets of sound making objects in the tanks are sounded by the water movement and picked up by hydrophones or other type of microphones.

3. 8-channel loudspeaker playback system in the main hall that will:

a) make audible the sound from the sedimentation channels and the hall beneath

b) playback selected recordings of Prague's sounds chosen from those collected during the project

4. A periodic live voice performance reciting from the archives of water and pollution data related to the Prague water, pollution and meteorological reports.

5. A performance in the immediate environment inside and outside the Sewage Museum with a wireless radio microphone that feeds back chosen external sounds back into the main hall to be heard on the loudspeaker system.

The performative installation combines these elements through live mixing.

Initiator of the radio projec "rádio d-cz":

Artistic concept: Peter Cusack, Miloš Vojtěchovský

Artistic collaboration:

Aleš Zemene, Prague, sound research of the sonification of data

Michal Kindernay, Prague, sound research and hydrophones system

Jakub Hybler, Prague, sound and instalation support

Stanislav Abrahám, sound research and support

webdesign and graphic design: Martin Blažíček

Production and promotion:

Denisa Václavová, Praha, Four Days in Motion Festival.

Výzkumné centrum průmyslového dědictví ČVUT

Curators of the radio project "rádio d-cz": Gaby Hartel, Frank Kaspar

Producer SWR Baden-Baden: Frank Halbig

Producer Deutschlandradio Kultur Berlin: Marcus Gammel

Live EBU broadcast / Czech Radio producer, artistic supervision: Michal Rataj

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