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11th June, 2016, 10 pm – Midnight,
Szaniec Jezuicki_
Kolonia Anielinki Street 1A _ Gdansk _
#odcinki2016 _

01

THE MISOPHONIC EPISODE is meant to be a sensory journey through the sounds and the emotions of misophonia. The event’s framework is going to be based on the performance by the Great Misophonic Orchestra, on eating, and some AFFECTIVE reflexes. Yours, too.

It’s dark in here. The DARKENSS is all around. You can feel the sine waves of the sound and the ground. You’re entering the oversensitive ear of the city and going through its successive sections. Activated by your presence, the ecosystem is pulsating. It’s massaging you with the sound. Tune in. Taste. Listen. The intimacy of the situation may put you over the edge.

MISOPHONIA – SELECTIVE SOUND SENSITIVITY SYNDROME. A neurological state stemming from an involuntary emotional reflexes that occurs in your body as a response to the sounds of the mouth and the tongue – to swallowing, chewing, nibbling, sucking, smacking lips, crushing, nail-biting, winking, teeth-grinding, the sound of letter S, to the ‘tssssss’… . The closer the relationship, the stronger the emotions: discomfort, frustration, anger, fury, feeling claustrophobic and wanting to run away this second. The miso-stimuli make muscles contract and dry your mouth when you think of the saliva in somebody else’s mouth. Tension – heart beats faster – sweat. The overwhelming anxiety. The fear. Your breath gets shallow.

Misophonia is rarely diagnosed. Legally, it is not a disease. Sometimes, it can be indicative of unusual abilities like hypersensitivity to sound or synaesthesia. Other times, it is a comorbid illness of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Irrespective of its severity, it is currently incurable, but it can be alleviated by listening to white noise or avoiding trigger situations. Avoiding the trigger stimuli from our relatives may however be destructive to our relationships, bringing solitude and isolation.

 

Combining music, video art, theatre, performance, and other genres, EPISODES is a new series of cultural events, organised by the CCI. Each of the episodes is going to be a site-specific project reflecting the genius loci of a place.

An episode is a fragment, a part, a selected section, something between with a beginning and an end. It may be an episode in time or a place, as well as an episode of a TV series. A city episode/a city in episodes. An episode can also be a short and insignificant event, as well as a bout of mental illness. It can be a one-time thing that never happens again, but if you had it once, you will always live in the fear of the next episode.

Each of the episodes is going to be a one-time, one-of-a-kind artistic intervention in a selected space, and its character will depend on its theme. The episodes are going to deal with our bodily functions and emotional states, with phenomena that are hard to define yet real. Translated into the language of music, art, and performance, they will be built into interesting architectural, historical, and environmental contexts.

03

_SZANIEC JEZUICKI_

Szaniec Jezuicki (German: Jesuiterschanze, English: Jesuit Entrenchment) was built by Prussians in 1843—1867. It is a trapezoid fort of ca. 10 000 square metres. The entrenchment is situated at Kolonia Anielinki street, above the historic district of Gdansk called Stare Szkoty. The structure is a brick fort built in accordance with the rules of the so-called new Prussian school – the creators experimented with concrete structures. The name comes from the nearby Jesuit college located at the church of St Ignatius. The fort was built to fortify the neighbouring Biskupia Górka district and to protect the southern districts of Gdansk, including the warehouses on Wyspa Spichrzów. The entrenchment includes a dry moat, caponiers with firing points, scarps and counterscarps, polveristas, ammunition labs, and concrete guardrooms built into the embankments. In 1945, the Soviet army conducting bombardments from today’s Chełm and Ujeścisko districts destroyed the gunpowder magazine by the reduit at the entry to the entrenchment. The remains of the structure were in good condition, and in 1968 the entrenchment was recorded in the Polish register of objects of cultural heritage. However, from the 1945 till the present day, the structure has been slowly decaying and becoming overgrown. The citizens of Gdansk would use the bricks from the structure for some minor construction works. Once, there were warehouses and warehouse stores, a chicken farm, and a CD manufacturing facility. Since 2014, the structure has been tended by ‘Cruiseriders North’, a motorcycle association. The facility is not available for tourists, but the members of the association sometimes invite the citizens of Gdansk to participate in some events organised there. The entrenchment is located at the top of a hill from which you can see the entire city as well as some parts of Żuławy. From the bird’s-eye view, the site looks like an ear. Nearby is an old Jewish cemetery.

The entrenchment is situated above the historic district of Gdansk called Stare Szkoty (German: Altschottland); now – a part of the Chełm district. The settlement was established in the former village of Górka, on the side of Jezuicka Góra (until 1592 known as Breberg). From the sixteenth century, it was inhabited by craftsmen from Scotland, Mennonites and Jews from the Netherlands – mostly weavers, linen makers, tanners, shoe makers, rope makers, and brewers – who could not run their businesses in Gdansk. As they lived in the bishop’s estate, they did not have to pay taxes imposed by the city. They were Gdansk craftsmen’s competitors, so the city deemed buying their manufactures smuggling and introduced checks at the gates and searched the people in the streets. The settlement was also inhabited by the outlaws from Gdansk who escaped their trials in the city. Therefore, some old documents from Gdansk used to jokingly refer to the village as Schadeland (badlands). In the seventeenth century, bakeries were quickly developing there. (In Gdansk, people would talk about ‘the Scottish bread’.) In 1745, there were around 100 local breweries. After the first partition of Poland (1772), Stare Szkoty were incorporated into the City of Chełm. In 1775—1793, St Dominic’s fairs were held there that competed with the fair organised in Gdansk. From 1814, Stare Szkoty have been incorporated into Gdansk. After the Napoleonic Wars, the upper part of the settlement was rebuilt while the rest of the area was used as potato fields. At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first century, a housing area of single-family homes was built here with the architecture referring to the original style of the settlement. (source)

04

_How to get to Szaniec Jezuicki_

Szaniec Jezuicki is situated at the following address: ul. Kolonia Anielinki 1A, in the Chełm district. The access to Szaniec Jezuicki is in two streets: Cienista and Zamiejska. Szaniec Jezuicki has only one entrance opposite Cienista street. If you’re walking from Zamiejska street, you need to walk around Szaniec Jezuicki to reach the entrance.

How to get form the Gdańsk Główny train station to Chełm (Szaniec Jezuicki):
_buses 108 and 118 (get off right after the Zaroślak district at the Cmentarna request stop; or at the Cienista stop – first stop after the roundabout, next to the Lotos petrol station);
_trams 2, 6, and 11 (get off at the tram depot in Witosa street);
_by car: remember to park in Chełm and take a walk to Szaniec Jezuicki as there are no parking spaces in Kolonia Anielinki street).

NOTE: the walks from the stops in Cmentarna and Cienista streets take 10—15 minutes; the walk from the tram stop in Witosa street takes 20—25 minutes.

Get back to Gdansk by public transport:
_night buses N13 and N4 stop in the vicinity of Szaniec Jezuicki (stops at Sikorskiego and Worcella streets, respectively).

On that day, two extra buses will be doing runs starting at the Cienista stop at 00.30 and 01.00.

You can get assistance in getting to Szaniec Jezuicki at the following stops: Cmentarna, Witosa, and Cienista. The night bus timetables can be found at the information point (Punkt Info) at Szaniec Jezuicki.

NOTE:

– remember to park your car in Chełm and take a walk to Szaniec Jezuicki as there are no parking spaces in Kolonia Anielinki street;

– around Szaniec Jezuicki, all the street lights will be switched off – a torch might come in handy;

– in case of rain, remember to take your galoshes with you, or other waterproof shoes – the paths at Szaniec Jezuicki can get miry. The event is going to take place regardless of the weather conditions.

The Misophonia Episode is a 2-hour open air show. Please, show up on time.

04

                                  Organiser

umg 90     ikm 90

Partners

ip 80       fft 80      synagoga 80   cr 80     kk 80

Media support

aktivist 80     gliss 80     niom 80     popup 80 3m

_CREDITS_

Curator _ Natalia Cyrzan
Production _ Natalia Cyrzan, Anna Jankowska
Editing, www _ Ola Halicka
Translation _ Juliusz Okuniewski
Graphic design _ Bang Bang Design
Webdev _ Łukasz Farysej, trustudio
Photographic documentation _ Dawid Linkowski, Art and Action Photography
Video documentation _ cameras: Jarosław Klechowicz, montage: Konrad Kulczyński

Acknowledgements_
_Gdański Zarząd Nieruchomości Komunalnych and ‘Cruiseriders North’ association – for their permission to organise the Misophonia Episode at Szaniec Jezuicki.
_The Jewish community in Gdansk (Gmina Wyznaniowa Żydowska) – for their permission to use the new synagogue in Wrzeszcz for the rehearsals of the GMO.

Contact details_
City Culture Institute (Instytut Kultury Miejskiej): ul. Długi Targ 39/40, 80-830 Gdansk
For media: Marta Bednarska, e-mail: marta.bednarska@ikm.gda.pl