Syncness is a call, a reminder for the future. A call to remember before it will be to late.
The bustle and noise of anthrophony, the humming of cities, machines and roads make the bioacoustic landscapes of other living beings fade away. We almost lost the awareness of other life forms that we are sharing the environment with. However anthropocentric subordination of other creatures is also suppressing the understanding of the animal within us. The language that we use to communicate is human, the voice is of the animal. Is it possible for humans to imagine how it is to have a voice and rhythm encoded into the tissue of the nervous system? Is it possible to imagine that the frequency of the voice depends on the temperature of the environment? How do we hear the voices of soft and fluffy species with big eyes? How do we hear the insects that we usually do not even see? Is it possible to understand crickets?
The situation in the work Syncness enables us not only to listen to them but to really hear them. The device is an audiovisual interface that creates opportunities for sound synchronisation between human beings and crickets. Identification of signals transmitted by the animals is similar to close encounters of the third kind, but the alienated other is replaced by a cricket Acheta domesticus. Syncness is a harmony and cacophony of sound exchanges between the visitor and the animals and presents an attempt to synchronise with the other. It is a first step towards an algorithmic language that would enable non- verbal interspecies communication.
The dialog is transmitted to space via radio as to reflect upon the human urge to find extraterrestrial life however we are not even able to understand most of the cohabitants on our planet.
Syncness, 2015
Saša Spačal, Slavko Glamočanin
Associated professionals: Mirjan Švagelj, Anil Podgornik, Shlosart Metalart, Blaž Šolar
Production: Kapelica Gallery
Photography: Hana Josić, Miha Fras / foto arhiv galerije Kapelica
Project website: Syncness
The artwork is part of the ‘European Digital Art and Science Network’ international project, hosted by the Kapelica Gallery in collaboration with Ars Electronica Linz (AT), the Center for the Promotion of Science Beograd (RS), the DIG Gallery (SK), GV Art (UK), LABoral (ES), the Science Gallery (IE), the Zaragoza City of Knowledge Foundation (ES) and the scientific research centers of CERN (CH) and ESO (European Southern Observatory, CL). The project is sponsored by the EU Creative Europe programme, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Ljubljana.
Exhibitions
Symbiome – Economy of Symbiosis, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova – MSUM+, Ljubljana, Slovenia [Dec. 2016]
Pixelache festival, Helsinki, Finland [Sept. 2016]
Solo exhibition
Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia [Jan. 2016]