The Space of Sound, the Space of History Mirosław Bałka and Paweł Mykietyn

Abstract

The article aims to discuss the socio-political action of two contemporary musical performances produced in Poland. In particular, the author questions the specific function of the space, created by the visual artist Mirosław Bałka, in relation to the compositions by musician Paweł Mykietyn. In both cases they are adaptations of literary works (Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, 1834, and Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann, 1924) and in both cases it is the process of media transposition that rewrites the terms of cultural and identity discourse. Balka's design proposes, in a non-didactic way, traumatic images that are already well established and codified in the European collective memory and creates, in the fleeting time of the performance, a democratic and open structure, in which the memory of the defeated also participates.