2-channel sound installation / 2 Dec 2022 – 28 Feb 2023
Sežana Botanical Gardens
The exhibition version was prepared by Boštjan PEROVŠEK and Brane ZORMAN

Sounds that cut through the silence. Especially when, due to natural processes of sudden temperature changes, they thicken into cracked ice. At the same time these sounds are also the ones that raise many questions about the atmosphere, climate change, ecology and sound ecology and sensitize the listener through the sound medium. This spectrum of the acoustics of the winter soundscape is put under the microscope by sound_and_artist_compositions.

Jata C is an artistic group whose members share a passion for field recordings, bioacoustics and sound ecology. Their research combines auditory perception with ecological and social issues, expanding them with scientific discourse and original performances of sonic environments. In their compositions, they transform field recordings of their immediate surroundings into speculative projections of the future and delicate perceptions of the present. To capture the various environmental acoustic phenomena, they employ a vast array of field recording devices central to the so-called deep listening and non-anthropocentric relation with biotic and non-biotic entities. In their performances they follow a general score, leaving enough space for improvisation and live interpretation. Currently,  the group has presented to public two other compositions, namely ICEmeltings (2019) and Bibaret JC210120 (2020). The members of Jata C are primarily active as independent artists, but the connectedness in the context of the group enriches and reflects their own styles and views and offers a completely new context for understanding their joint creative practive.

Ida HIRŠENFELDER (beepblip) is a sound and intermedia artist. Her interests include the media history, archives and their vanishing, and media archeology. She collaborates with the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, +MSUM, Topographies of Sound festival, and within the radioCona program. She is a co-founder of the ČIPke Initiative for Women With a Sense for Technology with intermedia sound artist Saša Spačal. Between 2011 and 2017, Hiršenfelder was a member of DIY Theremidi Orchestra sound collective.

Petra KAPŠ (OR poiesis) is an artist and researcher of sound, sound perception and poetic performance. She extends the word in sonic spheres of timespace poetry. Along with the digital dimensions, her focus is nevertheless the physical presence of the body.

Boštjan PEROVŠEK, an artist, composer and sound designer, who composes experimental electroacoustic music. His special is creating bioacoustic music based on the sounds of animals, in particular insects. In addition, he collaborates with the SAETA group, creates music for film and theater, performances, multimedia installations and soundscapes for museums and galleries.

Bojana ŠALJIĆ PODEŠVA dedicates most of her time as a composer to the research of sound as an entity that affects the listener both physically and in terms of content. Her music spans from complete abstraction to complex semantic narratives. She is the recipient of several awards for her concert compositions, incidental music and film scores.

Brane ZORMAN is an intermedia artist, composer, sound manipulator, producer and curator. He composes sound works for theatre, intermedia and dance performances. He performs electro-acoustic solo pieces and improvisations with local and foreign artists in surround sound. Working with sound and space, Zorman develops various strategies, techniques, dynamic and interactive modules, records and reinterprets soundscapes and by way of sophisticated tools he creates electronic and acoustic sound sculptures.

PREVIOUS EVENTS AND PERFORMANCES

Exhibition of 8-channel sound installation / 26 Jan – 3 Mar 2019
Steklenik at Tivoli Greenhouse

Live sound event / 17 Jan 2019, at 22:20
ARS – 3. programme of Radio Slovenia and ORF Kunstradio

Sound exhibition opening / 26 Jan 2019, at 12:00
Steklenik at Tivoli Greenhouse

Live sound event / 29 Jan 2019, at 19:00
Steklenik at Tivoli Greenhouse

Documentary film / 13 Feb2019, at 19:00
Donna Haraway: Story telling for earthy survival
Kino Šiška, Katedrala Hall

Sounds that cut through the silence. Especially when, due to natural processes of sudden temperature changes, they thicken into cracked ice. At the same time, these sounds are also the ones that raise many questions about the atmosphere, climate change, ecology and sound ecology and sensitize the listener through the sound medium. This spectrum of the acoustics of the winter soundscape is put under the microscope by the sound artists of the composition.

The activities of radioCona in the last few years opened up the possibility to collaborate with Botanical garden. It seems right that radioCona in the new decade (it intervenes at frequency 88.8 MHz since 2008) enters the Steklenik gallery at Tivoli Greenhouse. To sharpen our hearing and find our place in the context of nature and art, we consciously unite both environments. In the warm conditions of Tivoli Greenhouse we will be able to submerge ourselves into remote listening of lonesome winter landscape and crystalline water structures. In this way we transfer experiences of transposed realities of hybrid conditions from nearby and afar. ICEmeltings is taking place in the context of radioCona, that was founded as project occasional radio station for contemporary art. Cona Institute uses the project to expose that radio frequency is also a form of public space and therefore could be used as an exhibition space. For several years we were scheduling the annual FM exhibition in winter time to bring sound and radio art to homes of listeners instead of just to classical venues. This year we will not organise a FM exhibition, visitors will be able to listen to group sound work ICEbreakings at Steklenik.

Acoustic artists try to unhinge the acoustics of icy winter landscapes, of their gradual or sudden mutations. Based on a prearranged sound structure, the artists will perform a live group event, using various different approaches to creation and selection of sounds from nature. This will serve to create a composition of closeness and secluded winter landscape. Even if this place first evokes silence and creates the conditions for increased sensory perception, it is still abundant with diverse sound ambients. Sounds are piercing the silence. Especially when natural phenomena (such as sudden temperature changes) cause thickening and breaking of ice. At the same time, these sounds in particular open up numerous questions concerning the atmosphere, climate changes, ecology, and sound ecology, thus stimulating the listener’s sensibility with the help of a sound medium. This is the kind of spectrum of a winter sound landscape that is being set under a microscope by a group of artists in the composition entitled ICEmeltings.

Artists: Amper-o-mat, beepblip, Boštjan PEROVŠEK, Bojana ŠALJIČ PODEŠVA, OR poiesis in Brane ZORMAN.

Petra Kapš, performs as OR poiesis and holds an MA in philosophy, she is an artist, writer, curator, and independent creator. She is active between the art of sound, radio, time-space poetry, performance, critical and essayist reflection of art, creation, and organisation of exhibitions and festivals.

Bojana Šaljič Podešva is a composer and musician that focuses on electro–acoustic music and composes multichannel works and works that employ real-time sound manipulation of live instruments. Besides works for concerts, she also creates music for drama and puppet theatre, dance shows, film, and other audiovisual projects.

Ida Hiršenfelder [beepblip] is curator and artist in the field of sound and intermedia art. She is interested in the history of media, archives, their disappearance and media archaeology. She is a member of DIY sound collective Theremidi Orchestra and co-founder of initiative ČIPke.

Borut Peternel performs as Amper-O-Mat and works as a composer, musician, artist, and producer, who mostly uses the predecessor of synthesizer – oscillator.

Boštjan Perovšek is a musician, composer, and sound designer who composes experimental electro-acoustic music. His speciality is creating bio-acoustic music based on the sounds of animals, especially bugs. He also performs with music group SAETA, creates music for film, theatre, performances, and multimedia installations as well as soundscapes for museums and galleries.

Brane Zorman is a composer, intermedia, sound, and radio artist, sound manipulator, and producer who composes for musicals, theatre, dance, and intermedia events and shows. He researches the possibilities of manipulation, presence, perception, placement, and re-interpretation of sound and uses old and new technologies to cross the fields of music, multimedia, and visual realm.