Renata Padovan – XINGU / Yiara Series and Brane Zorman – Hidden Materia II (ZVO.ČI.TI so.und.ing Series)

ponedeljek, 18 marca, 2013 in 2/MigrationZone, 4/Sound & Music, 5/Cona

Kapelica Gallery, Kersnikova 4, Ljubljana
Wednesday, March 27, 2013,7:00 pm – Gallery opensprogram:
8:30 pm – Presentation by Renata Padovan
9:00 pm – Sound performance by Brane Zorman

CONA is proud to announce the first edition of new ZVO.ČI.TI so.und.ing series presenting two authors with their premiere works.

Renata Padovan Yîara Series – Xingu, Yîara is a series of sound performances based on drawings of rivers whose flows have been interrupted or diverted due to damming or canalization processes.

Brane Zorman – Hidden Materia II, a sound performance in 5.1 spatial realisation (première). Electroacoustic composition for two computers and several networked controllers

Yîara Series – Xingu

Yîara is a series of sound performances based on drawings of rivers whose flows have been interrupted or diverted due to damming or canalization processes.

The title of this project, Yîara (in Tupi “Water Lady”), refers to a legend from Brazilian folklore that tells the story/tale of Yîara, a beautiful lady with long black hair adorned with red flowers. As she is a mermaid, her body is half human, half fish, and she lives at the bottom of the rivers of northern Brazil. At dusk, she comes to the surface and, sitting on the rocks on the riverbanks, she seduces men with her irresistible chant. The seduced people then go with her to the bottom of the river never to return, and the few that do escape go mad from her enchantments.

Xingu is the first edition of the Yîara series. The sound piece comprises sounds recorded in loco from the river surroundings, interviews with members of Asurini people from Kwatinemu Village and voices recorded in Ljubljana.

The Xingu River crosses central Brazil, from the tropical savannah of Mato Grosso upwards towards the Amazon, extending out over an area of 1870 km2. Its basin covers an area of 531,250 km², and as such is approximately 26 times larger than the territory of Slovenia. Its tracing is composed of several meanders, forming numerous islands whose patterns, as seen from above, resemble a lace made of water. Its course cuts through the Xingu Indigenous National Park, a 27,000-square-kilometre large protected indigenous area.

The Brazilian government is about to build the third largest dam in the world in the region called Baixo Xingu, at the point where the river bends south-east and then again heads north in a great turn known as Volta Grande (The Big Bend). Responsible for large-scale ecological and social damage in the region (the whole area belongs to the indigenous people), the project was already judicially interrupted by popular actions of local inhabitants, ecologists and part of the general Brazilian population. Unfortunately, the voices of economic interests are louder than the eco-social ones, and in the name of “progress”,construction has already began in the area. The devastating effects can be already felt in the region: a considerable decrease in fisheries, which are one of the sources of subsistence for the native people, as well as the doubling of village populations without health or sanitary infrastructure, which brings along a great increase in crime and disease, are only some examples.

For the dislocated and relocated indigenous people, what is the saddest is this asymmetry of power that leaves them little choice on how to lead their lives.

Almost as a magic connection, REKA meaning RIVER in Slovenian means LIFE in the language of Asurini from the Xingu region.

Brane Zorman – Hidden Materia II, a sound performance in 5.1 spatial realisation (première). Electroacoustic composition for two computers and several networked controllers

The composition Hidden Materia II is the second part of the trilogy that will be realised at different locations in 2013. The first part was performed in Glej Theatre, Ljubljana, in September 2012.
This sound composition is symbolically conceived as a formation and travelling of elementary, live, raw energy of the earth’s magma through numerous transformations and syntheses toward liberation and release, and consequently stabilisation in the solid matter in the earth, as an explosion of gas dispersion in water and air.

Photos and videos, prepared and processed beforehand, are transformed/coded through a special programme interface into sound elements of the programme tools NI Reaktor, MetaSynth 5 and MAX. The captured photos and videos are transformed into sound in real time. In other words, we hear what the software sees.
Parallel to photo processing procedures (which already present the source for the sound elements or sets described above in the coding system), the composer aims to create granulated pixel samples from the photos, which will be the basis for a unique record of the melody, dynamics and rhythm of the sound part of Hidden Materia II.

Here the author develops his own music record that will, besides the “score” that is prepared beforehand, also includes chance as an intuitive intervention. The basic samples of the music record can be symbolically understood as mind maps, or they can be imagined as perforated cards known from the early period of computing or, even earlier, from the beginnings of the industrial revolution, and also as records of music melodies. Seen from the perspective of melody, the samples will be repeated irregularly, their rhythm will be subjected to chance.

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At a residency in Ljubljana, Brazilian artist Renata Padovan devised the project Xingu as part of the series Yîara. Parallel to her project, Brane Zorman prepared the spatial surround performance Hidden Materia II.
Calling attention to social anomalies through artistic practice is nothing new. Examples from diverse social contexts resound and open up a multitude of perspectives revealed in art works, disclosing their political background and inviting us to contemplate and connect to wider global, as well as local, frames. In the centre of this activity lies the unmasking of social power and its ramifications.
Close and strong connections between the economy and politics are reflected both in rapidly changing legislation as well as in its negation – the voracious demands of capital that affect the weakest and are reflected in the wider social picture. The building of the dam on the Xingu River in Brazil will have unacceptable consequences for the indigenous people living there; their territory is literally being stolen from them. However, the situation is global, as we are dealing with interventions in the world’s biosphere in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
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Lace design: Tina Koder
Vocal interprets: Lija Pečnikar, David Hudnik, Kataya
Translation: Katja Kosi
Proofreading: Melita Silič
English proofreading: Eric Scott
Producers for CONA: Jasmina Založnik, Irena Pivka

Produced by: CONA Institute for Contemporary Arts Processing, Peričeva 7, SI-Ljubljana
contact: cona@cona.si http://www.cona.si
Hosted by: Kapelica Gallery K6/4
Partner: Residency at the Public Fund for Cultural Activities of Slovenia
Cona’s programme and projects are supported by the Municipality of Ljubljana