ORBĪTA - Echo Echo
Orbita is a collective of poets and artists, founded in 1999 by Alexander Zapol, Vladimir Leibgam, Arturs Punte, Vladimir Svetlov, Sergej Timofejev, and Zhorzh Uallik. Its members initially came together around a publishing project that came to its first fruition with several issues of the Orbita almanac, eventually leading to the establishment of a freestanding publishing house focused on bilingual editions of poetry and photography. In the meantime, the group began to experiment with collective performance formats (appearing with musicians and refining the idea of “the poetic show”), sound (publication of several albums; creation of sound-art installations), and the combination of text with moving images (video poetry) and other media.
In the “Skaņu mežs” program, “Orbita” participates with the performance “Echo Echo” and the installation “From the Air”. Both creations tend to explore new sound sources and the conversion of various energies into audible material. In the performance “”Echo Echo”, using WiFi and GSM network, radio messages transmitted by the radio enthusiasts worldwide and radio communication of various services, commercial and public broadcasting, radiation and electromagnetic field measurements, infrasound and fluctuations in the electrical grid of the city, gives an insight into the wide-range radio ether and the rippling ocean of environmental data that surrounds us. Surfing these and other unaccustomed waves, measurements and data can also come across the voices of recently deceased poets… Like grass condenses dew, the installation “From the Air” with its antennas collects and discharges the energy transforming it into beeps creating a small spatial sound grove.