Tomáš Prištiak (1988) is an artist working in sound art and performance, with a particular focus on sound. Through sound, he seeks new, gentle approaches to things, environments, and both human and non-human communities. Since 2015, he has performed with various experimental music ensembles and created solo sound performances as well as collective listening sessions. His solo works have been presented at festivals such as Kiosk, Next – Festival of Advanced Music, Kinobus, Less is Sound, Sensorium, and others. He has performed in Prague, Brno, Budapest, Ljubljana, and Vienna. In addition to performative works and sound installations, he also composes music for film and independent theatre. He studied documentary filmmaking under Dušan Hanák at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava.

The video installation Circumnavigation of the Island forms the final act of the field-recording opera cycle Danube as a Strategy of Listening. It documents the act of walking around Veľkolélsky Island at dawn – a river island on the Danube near Komárno. The work approaches the river as an object with its own ecosystems, relations, and internal logics. The live recording also captures the wanderer’s reflections on human perception and the colonization of nature, taking shape as an ambulatory form of essay.

The Danube as a model environment of listening.

The river as a current of sound, as a shifting strategy of perception.

The flow as a story composed of human and non-human actors – existing beyond the scales and temporalities of human life.

The history of one river heard through the intimate story of a single listener.

A listener striving for new ways of grasping.

The Danube as a strategy of listening.