Prečnica je zanka

Transversal Is A Loop je skoraj 50 minut dolga zvočna kompozicija v kateri Saša Spačal skupaj in v dialogu s črički Acheta domesticus raziskuje kako misliti glasbo, zvočno manipulacijo in kompozicijo. Procesu nastajanja pričujočega posnetka botruje Sašino večletno ukvaranje z biološkimi sistemi in njihovo raziskavo skozi umetniško-znanstvene metodologije in fizične manifestacije v obliki objektov in prostorskih intervencij. Njeno delo je tako neizogibno povezano s kritičnimi premisleki o odnosu človeka in njegovem vplivu na biološke ekosisteme na planetarni, mikroskopski in energetski ravni. Prepletenost človeka s črički v tem zvočnem delu izpostavlja črto potovanja, ki po več ciklih, povratnih med-vrstnih zank in premislekih o načinu preživetja živalske vrste skozi poblagovljenje pristane na začetni točki.

“Transversal is a loop is a series of sonic entanglements between a sound artist and crickets Acheta domesticus. As a sonic line, as a transversal, it passes through three planes of existence that crickets experience in the Anthropocene by sonicaly exploring dynamic equilibrium in terrestrial habitats, vulnerability to extinction in human-cricket feedback loop and commodification of crickets as a mode of survival.

Transversal travels through feedback looping planes to observe and record the human-cricket relationship with various sonic methods while contemplating the living conditions of the nonhuman others, the crickets Acheta domesticus. Saša Spačal employs a mix of field recordings, analogue and digital modular synthesizers, self-made string instrument, acoustics resonance and feedback loops in glass domes with an aspiration to form a sonic relationship with chirping critters.

The aim is to help crickets be heard in various sonic situations on the plane of biological habitat, as well as giving them surrogate voices and sounds on the other two planes by providing them with audio inputs and samplers connected to analogue and modular synthesizers with an intention of making them the co-creators of soundscapes.

Transversal is a line which after passing numerous planes of existence and circling through feedback loops reaches a point that it has passed before and it becomes obvious that it is not a line anymore, in it’s becoming it is a loop. Transversal is a loop, one of those immersed in a multiplicity of feedback loops that propels inter- and intra-connectedness of the planet from micro to macro scale. One of those between humanity and environment that human beings have difficulty grasping thus not fully comprehending the proverbial wisdom of the phrase ‘what goes around comes around’.” – iz spremnega besedila Saše Spačal napisenega v angleškem jeziku

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Statement about performing with crickets, a sonic close-up with live crickets Acheta domesticus at the festival Sound Topographies: Contexts curated by Nina Dragičevič at Škuc Gallery in October, 2017 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Cycles is an attempt at exploring sympoesis. Sympoesis for me signifies an important word, even a manner of being in this world. To put it most simply, Donna Haraway conceptualized it as working together or making, creating together.

This is what I try to manifest with Cycles: I try to work and artistically produce, create together with crickets. I try to give them space and I learned their name Acheta domesticus. Well at least the name of their species. Still an anthropocentric denomination, but at least some type of a name. Unfortunately, I cannot name them individually, one by one, as my perception is still too narrow to be able to distinguish them individually.

However, what I can do is try to acknowledge them as something more than fodder or foodstuff. For those of you who do not know, crickets in human capitalist society with its crazed consumer culture are most of the time grown and sold as food – for larger mammals, lizards, hedgehogs, spiders and in some parts of the world also for people. Their nutritional value is being researched and crickets are being considered as possible future superfood, as a nutritional supplement, which we might in the future be able to simply nibble in various protein bars and drink in smoothies.

In cricket farms, where they are grown, they have short lifetime spans where they literally never see any light and never meet any other biological species besides their caretakers. Mostly, the crickets are grown in plastic boxes with some carton pieces to offer them hiding from light. We as humans do not treat them any better than we do cows, chickens, pigs and other farm animals in farm factories. As an animal species that cannot become a person’s pet companion with fluffy hair and big round eyes, such as dogs and cats possess, they are even more exposed to being treated as products instead of living organisms or even living beings, I guess.

I do my best to provide the crickets with another role in the world, so they might for a moment be seen as something else or even perhaps as someone else, as a subject. It was not easy to learn how to treat them, how to provide an environment where they can easily thrive. I must admit there were victims due to my lack of knowledge and lack of sensibility for their needs.

Now I think I have actually learned how to take care of them, however, I still have a long way to go. Slowly, I am building a relationship with them, and I keep exploring and learning how to upgrade it. Of course now, this seems as a utopian and impossible mission. However, every experiment opens up new plane of possibilities, and their manifestation always depends on the accumulated knowledge.

During the performance, while improvising, I try to create sound situations where the crickets would be heard as different and diverse in different contexts of soundwaves. If I succeed, they do not sound alone and lonely, but are heard within the context of an ecosystem of sounds from which they actually come from. They are for me part of the biophonic landscape from which the species was taken and put into a box on the shelf of a pet shop. Locked into the one-dimensional category of food.

Do not worry, I am not going to rant about a vegetarian or vegan diet. Every individual persons’ food habits are a very intimate choice. I hope a conscious decision where the fact that needs of every individual human body are different is being considered in view of the impact of certain industries that have grown much too large or use particular methods that are not sustainable for our planet.

Besides, I also know that there needs to be a circle of life and that the food chain is a real fact so that humans and other creatures on this planet can actually survive. However, once in a while it is nice to thank other creatures and think about how much we take from them and also how much we are actually given every day without even asking. I have never asked crickets to chirp, and yet they do it. Their sounds make all of the long summer evenings quite special for me. So this performance is basically me saying ‘thank you’ for sharing the biophonic landscape with me. I am thanking these wonderful little sound masters, so dear to me, but in a way so foreign. So long and thanks for all the chirps!” – besedilo Saše Spačal napisano V angleškem jeziku

 

PREPLET V TREH DEJANJIH KOMPOZICIJE

Cikli

Metoda: v iskanje zvočne niše
Cikli raziskujejo dinamično ravnovesje zemeljskega habitata s terenskimi posnetki, godalnimi inštrumenti in analognimi sintetizatorji, tako da poskušajo najti zvočne niše za cvrčanje čričkov v različnih akustičnih pasovih.

Medvrstna povratna zanka

Metoda: povratna zanka v steklenih kupolah in z modularnimi sintetizatorji
Povratna zanka med človekom in čričkom raziskuje ranljivost in izumiranje čričkov kot tudi ljudi tako, da pošilja zvoke čričkov v steklene kupole, da se pretvorijo v mikrofnijo, ter pošilja signal čričkanja v modularne sintetizatorje, kot signale za modulacijo nastajajoče zvočne pokrajine.

Način preživetja

Metoda: tehno črtne kode
Razmišljanje o poblagovljenju kot načinu preživetja. Čričkanje v tehno pokrajini z zvoki čitalnika črtne kode.

 

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SODELUJOČI

Saša Spačal: zvok, besedila
Črički Acheta domesticus: zvok
Jedrt Maležič Lapuh: lektura
Tina Ivezić: grafično oblikovanje
Maruša Hren: oblikovanje in izdelava usb knjižice
Luka Prinčič: oblikovanje usb knjižiče, uredništvo, produkcija
Stella Ivšek: Kamizdat Rentgen visuals, streaming, design and promotion

Posebne zahvale:
Michal Kindernay (Agosto Foundation)
Irena Pivka, Brane Zorman (CONA – Institute for Contemporary Arts Processing)
Kompozicija Cikli je bila ustvarjena po naročilu za radioCona:0.2425 FM razstavo v 2016.
Projekt Prečnica je zanka je bil razvit kot del rezidence pri Agosto Foundation v 2018.

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Glasba je ustvarjena in objavljena pod pogoji Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 licence ([Priznanje avtorstva-Deljenje pod enakimi pogoji 4.0] – Attribution-ShareAlike) www.creativecommons.org/licences.

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KAMIZDAT je slovenska spletna založba, ki se osredotoča na elektronsko in eksperimentalno glasbo slovenskih umetnikov. Prizadevanja založbe, ustanovljene leta 2006 in obujene leta 2013, zaznamujejo vrednote D.I.Y. etosa, lokalnega sodelovanja, uporaba brezplačne programske opreme, copy-left licenciranja in kritične teorije. Povezava: www.kamizdat.si.

Medijska podpora: Radio Študent Ljubljana
Finančna podpora: Mestna občina Ljubljana, Ministrstvo za Kulturo RS
 

Album
Transversal is a Loop, Kamizdat [2019]

 

Prenosi
Transversal is a Loop, kurator Patrick Mcginley, Framework Radio [June 2020]

 

Performansi
Prečnica je zanka, kuratorji Christine Schörkhuber, Stefan Voglsinger, Ulla Rauter und Veronika Mayer, Klangmanifeste, Echoraum, Dunaj, Avstrija [September 2022]
Prečnica je zanka, kuratorica Lona Galkis, Sonar Park, IMA – Institut für Medienarchäologie, Lames, St. Pölten, Avstrija [Julij 2021]
Prečnica je zanka, curators Shu Lea Cheang, Tanja Brandmayr, Franz Xaver, STWST48x6 MORE LESS, Stadtwerkstatt, Ars Electronica, Linz, Avstrija [September 2020]
Prečnica je zanka, kurator Juraj Hoppan, Sensorium Festival: Beyond the Sound, Bratislava, Slovakia [Avgust 2020]
Prečnica je zanka, Škuc Gallerija, Ljubljana, Slovenija [September 2019]
Prečnica, RadArt #10: X/L Experiment: Radio Tovarna, Radar – Open Radio Investigative Art Platform, Cirkulacija 2, Ljubljana, Slovenija [Maj 2019]
Prečnica, Lom space, Bratislava, Slovakia [Februar 2018]
 

 
Razstave
Buzzing Slovenia, kuratorica Sofia Botvinnik, Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Nemčija [Junij 2023 – April 2024]
A Hard Rain’s A – Gonna Fall, kuratorica Lara Pan, Jamestown, New York, ZDA [April-Junij 2023]
KonS Modul, kurator Adrija Praznik, Simulaker Gallery, Novo mesto, Slovenija [Junij-Julij 2021]
Interspecies Futures [IF] Exhibition, kurator Oscar Salguero, Center for Book Arts, New York, ZDA [April-Junij 2021]
Think Eat : Urban Alternatives, kuratorica Sarah Aucagos, produkcija Ohme, Bruselj, Belgija [Marec – April 2021]
Living Object, kuratorica Alenka Trebušak, Mestna galerija Ljubljana, Muzej in galerije mesta Ljubljana, Slovenija [September – November 2020]
Kořeny rostou dovnitř, Entrance Gallery, kuratorici Veronika Čechová, Tereza Jindrová, Praga, Češka Republika [November 2020]

 
Zvočni objekt
Prečnica je zanka: Farma čričkov, Mestna galerija Ljubljana [2020]

“Prečnica je zanka je zvočni objekt, ki združuje zvočno kompozicijo z elementi terarija in farme čričkov, kjer jih gojijo v jajčnih kartonih. Izhaja iz umetničnega kritičnega razglabljanja o človeškem vplivu na ekosistem na planetarni in mikroskopski ravni, uresničuje pa ga z raziskovanjem simpoezisa, pri čemer jo zanima predvsem možnost soustvarjanja z nečloveškimi akterji, v tem primeru s hišnimi črički Acheta domesticus. Objekt povezuje realne zvoke čričkov v galerijskem prostoru z glasbenim delom, zvoki samostojno izdelanega godalnega inštrumenta, analognih in digitalnih modularnih sintetizatorjev, akustične resonance in povratnih zank. Kot zvočna linija potuje skozi več ravni o življenjskih razmerah, v katerih so se znašli črički v antropocenu: od vloge vzdrževanja v dinamičnega ravnovesjav naravi do ranljivosti do človeka zaradi njegovih posegov v okolje kot tudi zaradi tega,ker jih v kapitalistični družbi s svoji potrošniško logiko gojimo in prodajamo za hrano tako kuščarjev, pajkov, ježev, pa tudi ljudi.
Umetničin poglavitni namen je čričkom pomagati k slišnosti v različnih zvočnih položajih ne samo v njihovem naravnem habitatu, temveč tudi, ko so spremenjeni v komoditeto, ter jim takrat priskrbeti nadomestne glasove in zvoke z zvočnimi vhodi, povezanimi z analognimi in modularnimi sintetizatorji, in jim tako omogočiti, da jih kot subjekte sprejmemo za soustvarjalce kompozicije.”
– katalog Živi objekt, urednica Alenka Trebušak, Mestna galerija Ljubljana, 2020

 
Prečnica je zanka: Farma čričkov na razstavi Živi objekti

Prečnica je zanka: Farma čričkov na razstavi Think Eat: Urban Alternatives