An Active Encounter

Saturday, 01 March

PS², 1pm: Michael O’Halloran

Jam Rezistence in A: This improvisational piece will explore the virtues of cooperation, communication and pragmatic invention in the face of censorship. This experiment aims to uncover the process of something becoming what it is not in a slow and difficult progression from the cacophony of individualism and alienation to a melody of innovation and cooperation. 

Saturday, 01 March

PS², 2pm: Colm Clarke - Performative Lecture

Dublin based artists Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty, Belfast based artist Colm Clarke and Belfast based musician Michael O’Halloran have been invited to respond to the conceptual possibilities and active potential of this object. A series of related talks will take place during the exhibition.

10 – 14 February
Listen to http://anabasis.out.airtime.pro:8000/anabasis_a  by Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty.

About the project 

This project will investigate one single piece of artwork ‘Czechoslovakia Radio 1968’ by Tamas St Turba.
The work consists of a red building brick with chalk markings drawn onto the sides denoting the dials of a radio. When Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviet army in 1968, people resisted through creative means. After people were forbidden to listen to radio broadcasts, they started attaching antennas to bricks as a sign of protest. These fake radios spread among the population who pretended to listen to them, and although they were useless as a communication device, they were continuously confiscated by the Russian Army.

At PS², the presence of the object during the exhibition will pose a starting point for a series of questions and responses. In this project it becomes a radio, it becomes a mediator, a narrator, a conjurer, it recognises a moment of conceptual art in history, it becomes a symbol of the avant garde, of political resistance, of universal activism, of the physical environment. 

An Active Encounter is curated by Ciara Hickey. PS² invited her to realise a project of her choice, giving her complete freedom- except the restraints of the budget. Selecting a single piece by Tamas St Turba, a brick imitating a radio transmitter, she developed a curatorial idea of responses, both artistically and in terms of research.
With it's stunning simplicity, elements of participation and research, this project captures very convincingly what PS² would aim for.

Follow the project on facebook

Essay by Ciara Hickey- published in the online art magazine collected

'The project An Active Encounter proposed an extended consideration of a single piece of art work.   Over a three week period a series of talks, performances, interventions and actions took place at PS2 Belfast in response to Czechoslovakia Radio 1968 by Hungarian actionist and conceptual artist Tamas St.Turba1.

I first encountered this art work in 2011 at Documenta 13. The work itself is no more than a red building brick painted with yellow sulphur paint.  At Documenta it was exhibited on a plinth and accompanied by a short text briefly outlining a real event from 1968, and an unexpected rupture of conceptual art into an historical narrative. The text referred to the Warsaw Pact army’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 during which people were forbidden to listen to radio broadcasts. People resisted this censorship through a range of creative means, including making ‘brick radios’, by attaching antennae and painting dials on to bricks. These fake radios spread amongst the population who pretended to listen to them, and although they were useless as a communication device, they were continuously confiscated by the army.....' Read more.

P r o g r a m m e

07 February - 01 March: Colm Clarke 

‘O O O’
inductive attractors
breathe the city
tempting theia
in a satellite circuit

10 – 14 February: Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty

Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty hope to raise both conscious and subconscious awareness of the brick/ radio at PS² by exploring tactics of disorientation, interference, listening, clue-placement, allusion, misdirection and ‘going widdershins’. They will host a Czechoslovakia Radio 1968 fan club meeting on Valentine’s day (Friday 14 February) at 3pm, starting in the gallery.
Between 10 and 14 February 2014 you can find out more information on the project by visiting.

Saturday, 01 March, 1pm: Michael O’Halloran Jam Rezistence in A

This improvisational piece will explore the virtues of cooperation, communication and pragmatic invention in the face of censorship. This experiment aims to uncover the process of something becoming what it is not in a slow and difficult progression from the cacophony of individualism and alienation to a melody of innovation and cooperation.

Screenings of Kentaur (Centaur) with introduction by Tamas St Turba. Thursday, 06 February: University of Ulster, 1pm.

Kentaur (Centaur) was made between 1973-75, and was banned before the final version was completed. In 2009, a copy was restored and digitised for the Istanbul Biennial. Kentaur is made from found footage from the Socialist era showing citizens going about their daily lives. The found footage is layered with new dialogues addressing themes of work, money and power.
Hungarian conceptual artist and Fluxus ‘actionist’, Tamas St.Turba will introduce his film at University of Ulster and CCA. Friday, 07 February CCA Derry-Londonderry, 7pm

EXHIBITION TALKS at PS²

Thursday, 06 February

PS², 6pm: Talk Tamas St Turba

Wednesday, 19 February

PS², 3.30pm:Colloquium with Professor Mia Lerm Hayes 

Friday, 21 February PS², 1pm

Curator Triona White Hamilton will discuss the project Everyday Objects Transformed by the Conflict made through Healing Through Remembering in the context of 'Czechoslovakia Radio 1968'.

Friday, 28 February PS², 1pm

Journalist, author and socialist activist Eamonn McCann will discuss his experiences of setting up Radio Free Derry in 1968

Saturday, 01 March PS², 2pm: Colm Clarke - Performative Lecture

Dublin based artists Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty, Belfast based artist Colm Clarke and Belfast based musician Michael O’Halloran have been invited to respond to the conceptual possibilities and active potential of this object. A series of related talks will take place during the exhibition.

Follow the project on facebook

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Artist Biographies

Tamas St Turba (Szentjóby, St.Auby, Emmy Grant, Staubsky). Since the mid 60s, Tamas St Turba has resisted ideological systems. He partipated in Mail Art and acted as a translator, promoter and actionist of Fluxus. In 1966, together with Gabor Altorjay, he realized the first Happening in Hungary.  In 1968, he founded the International Parallel Union of Telecommunications (IPUT) and subsequently becomes its superintendent.  In 1975 he was exiled from his country, Hungary. Upon returning to Hungary in 1991, he began giving lectures at the School of Beaux Arts in Budapest.  In 2003 he made the Portable Intelligence Increase Museum, a multimedia archive aimed at filling in the gaps of the Hungarian neo-avantgarde (1956-1976).

Colm Clarke is an artist based in Belfast creating actions, sonic scores, and situations. He is a member of Bbeyond and has a studio at QSS Bedford St.
For more information see

Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty have been working collaboratively since graduating from fine art at NCAD in 2010. Their practice encompasses performance, video, sound installation and storytelling, along with a detailed research process to convey visions of transience and resistance.

Michael O’Halloran is a Belfast based musician known for his work with experimental band Blue Whale.
For more information see

Ciara Hickey is a curator based in Belfast. She works in Belfast Exposed Photography as Acting Curator and Gallery Manager. She is also a co-curator of the Household Collective and from 2008-2010 co-curated the alternative art space ‘Delawab’ in her home.  She has recently completed the ‘Art in the Contemporary World’ MA course at NCAD in Dublin.