city/sound/scape, variation II

The Odyseja Nowohucka 2025 festival opened the doors to the Kombinat Administration Centre, also known as the 'Doge's Palace', a renowned building in the history of Polish architecture and design. Organised by Teatr Łaźnia Nowa and Dom Utopii, and curated by Łukasz Trzciński, the festival offered visitors the chance to explore the building's many rooms and corridors during performative tours. Visitors were guided through mysterious rooms, halls, and corridors filled with video and sound installations, images, and live performances by 22 artists.

Nowa Huta is a unique testimony to urban and social 're-figuration' in today's Europe. Originally designed from the top down as an ideological, socialist, and urban planningproject, Nowa Huta has been undergoing an ongoing economic and social transformationsince 1989. The accompanying geographical changes and the progressive changes of Kraków have led to new residents, different everyday activities, and altered patterns of movement. The audiosphere is also undergoing a profound transformation, which is linked, for example, to the closure of the industrial context.

The audio-visual installation draws on the long-term projects 'Daily Routes (Nowa Huta)' and 'Cityscape (Nowa Huta)' (2023) by Simone Rueß, as well as the soundscapes recorded by Rafał Mazur in Nowa Huta over the last few years. Edited especially for Odyseja Nowohucka 2025, this 1-channel projection combines analyses of urban structures and soundscapes in the form of hybrid mapping. It fills the former theatre hall of the Administrative Centre with the voices of Nowa Huta's inhabitants and non-human beings, creating multiple patterns and reflecting on the historical and social characteristics and transformations of this unique cityscape.

city/sound/scape (Nowa Huta)

Nowa Huta is a unique testimony to urban and social 're-figuration' in today's Europe. Originally designed from the top down as an ideological, socialist, and urban planningproject, Nowa Huta has been undergoing an ongoing economic and social transformationsince 1989. The accompanying geographical changes and the progressive changesof Kraków have led to new residents, different everyday activities, and altered patternsof movement. The audiosphere is also undergoing a profound transformation, whichis linked, for example, to the closure of the industrial context. In an interdisciplinarydialog, Simone Rueß and Rafał Mazur bring together analyses of urban structures andsoundscapes in the form of a hybrid mapping. Residents are invited to actively participateand reflect on their neighbourhoods in the context of local and global upheavals. An audio-visual 5-channel installation makes the artistic investigations spatio-temporally experienceable.


Nowa Huta ist ein einzigartiges Zeugnis einer urbanen und sozialen 'Re-Figuration' im heutigen Europa. Ursprünglich von oben herab als ideologisches, sozialistisches und städtebauliches Gesamtprojekt angelegt, erfährt Nowa Huta seit 1989 eine andauernde wirtschaftliche und soziale Umgestaltung. Die damit einhergehenden geographischen Veränderungen und die fortschreitende Polarisierung der Nachbarschaft mit Krakau, führen zu neuen Bewohner*innen, anderen Alltagsaktivitäten und veränderten Fortbewegungsstrukturen. Auch die Audiosphäre befindet sich in einem tiefgreifenden Wandel, der zum Beispiel mit dem Aussterben des industriellen Kontextes zusammenhängt. In einem interdisziplinären Dialog führen Simone Rueß und Rafał Mazur Analysen von Stadt- und Klanglandschaften in Form eines hybrid mappings zusammen. Bewohner*innen werden zur aktiven Teilnahme eingeladen ihren Stadtteil im Spannungsgefüge lokaler und globaler Umbrüche zu reflektieren. Eine audio-visuelle 5-Kanal-Installation macht die künstlerischen Untersuchungen raumzeitlich erfahrbar.
Common Movement Space, excerpt of the installation 'city/sound/scape' by Simone Rueß and Rafał Mazur
Daily Routes, 2023, performative and participative research action, July 6 - July 11, 2023, table on wheels, 100 x 100 cm, black map, transparent papier, marker, action-camera.
Daily Routes, 2023, performative and participative research action, July 6 - July 11, 2023, Aleja Róz, Nowa Huta.




Cityscape Nowa Huta



"Based on the insights I received during the conversations and narrative mappings of residents along my first tour through the city (Nowa Huta), I revisited and approached selected locations in greater detail (Lynch 1960, 15). I stood with my mobile table at six locations for a longer duration of time (approximately two to three hours), scanning the visual field and documenting the multiplicity of moments as layers of strokes and lines on a single sheet of paper (Figure 4). The live drawings were simultaneously filmed from above and later digitally sped up in videos and superimposed. Inverted to white on black, like an X-ray, the time-based images illuminate ‘a view of bodies seen through and beyond their skins’—that is, a view of environmental structures seen through their surfaces (Rueß 2023a, 89). Built on my artistic practice, I used the method of overlaying drawn movements into simultaneity to reveal the so-called movement space in relation to the architecture, environments, and their histories."

excerpt: Simone Rueß (2025). Performance Drawing: Uncovering Multiple Timescapes of Nowa Huta, In: Spacetimes Matter. A Collection of Mapping Methodologies. Baxter, Jamie-Scott / Heinrich, Anna Juliane / Marguin, Séverine / Sommer, Vivien (Eds.), Jovis: Berlin.

Os. Stalowe, excerpt of the installation 'city/sound/scape' by Simone Rueß and Rafał Mazur.


References:

Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The Image of the City. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Rueß, Simone. 2023a. ‘Drawing and (Re)Acting: The Creation of Movement Spaces’. Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice 8 (1): pp. 81–94. https://doi.org/10.1386/drtp_00107_1.

Daily Routes (Nowa Huta)

Nowa Huta is a unique testimony to urban and social 're-figuration' in today's Europe. Originally designed from the top down as an ideological, socialist, and urban planning project close to a huge steelwork, Nowa Huta has been undergoing an ongoing economic and social transformation since 1989. The accompanying geographical changes and the progressive changes of Kraków have led to new residents, different everyday activities, and altered patterns of movement. The audiosphere is also undergoing a profound transformation, which is linked, for example, to the closure of the industrial context.

To better understand the particularity of the city structure and how it is/was experienced by inhabitants today and in the past, I engaged with Stara Nowa Huta through several artistic interactions in the summer and autumn of 2023. I conducted the performative and participatory research tour, titled „Daily Routes“, by wheeling a dining table through the city and inviting passers-by to share their everyday routes and memories of the city. These routes and memories were recorded as spoken narratives and drawings overlaid on the printed cartographic map of Nowa Huta. The table was round, so we could converse and circle around it and change perspectives dynamically. An action camera and a microphone were installed above the table to record the mapping processes from a bird’s-eye view.


Nowa Huta ist ein einzigartiges Zeugnis der urbanen und sozialen „Re-Figuration” im heutigen Europa. Ursprünglich als ideologisches, sozialistisches und städtebauliches Projekt vom Reißbrett in der Nähe eines riesigen Stahlwerks entworfen und gebaut, befindet sich Nowa Huta seit 1989 in einem kontinuierlichen wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Wandel. Die damit einhergehenden geografischen Veränderungen und der fortschreitende Wandel Krakaus haben zu neuen Einwohner*innen, anderen Alltagsaktivitäten und veränderten Bewegungsmustern geführt. Auch die Audiosphäre unterliegt einem tiefgreifenden Wandel, der beispielsweise mit der Schließung des industriellen Kontexts zusammenhängt. 

Um die Besonderheiten der Stadtstruktur und ihre Wahrnehmung durch die Einwohner*innern heute und in der Vergangenheit besser zu verstehen, habe ich mich im Sommer und Herbst 2023 durch mehrere künstlerische Interaktionen mit Stara Nowa Huta auseinandergesetzt. Ich führte die performative und partizipative Researchtour mit dem Titel „Daily Routes“ durch, indem ich einen Esstisch mit einer installierten Stadtkarte durch Nowa Huta schob und Passant*innen einlud, ihre alltäglichen Wege und Stadterinnerungen mit mir zu teilen. Diese Wege und Erinnerungen wurden als gesprochene Erzählungen und Notationen auf einem Schwarzplan von Nowa Huta aufgezeichnet. Der Tisch war rund, sodass wir uns um ihn herum unterhalten und dynamisch die Perspektive wechseln konnten. Über dem Tisch waren eine Action-Kamera und ein Mikrofon installiert, um die Kartierungsprozesse aus der Vogelperspektive aufzuzeichnen.