AR soundwalk
Tuesday, 27 Aug, at 18:30 and 19:30
Wednesday, 11 Sep, at 18:30 and 19:30
Tomšič tree avenue, Ljubljana
A testimony form one of the participants of the AR soundwalk:
“It was like being a little weightless, with the boundaries between reality and fiction seemingly blurred.”
The speculative story of the soundwalk performance garden GOround points to the problematic relationship between people and plants, which is geared to mainly benefit people. The colonialism itself and the human-mediated dispersal of plants capitalize on the subjection and exploitation of nature. It is vital to radically change this attitude if we want to deal effectively with the existential threat of ecological crisis and contemplate a brighter scenario for the future. To become more familiar with the world of plants, garden GOround goes into the temporal dimension.
Through the prism of the journeys of these two utterly different temporalities of humans and plants, seemingly offering no possible point of encounter, it speculates on the development of a future solidarity-based coexistence of humans and plants. Plants, the most populous species on the planet, live at their own pace in their own time, walking the paths we cannot access. garden GOround will take us along the paths of a possible future scenario for our overstressed, noisy planet mirrored through the development of local greenways. Can we learn from plants to build a more solidarity-oriented future?
Photo: Nada Žgank.
The audience experiences the soundwalk through specially developed headphones used as a tool to speculate the world and the sonic landscape of the future. The world is getting too loud and harmful for our sensitive ears, which have failed to adapt to aggressive frequencies. To survive outdoors, we will need headphones that will both mute and sharpen the sound image and, at the same time, take us into the acoustic narrative.
The soundwalk is broadcast on an AR (augmented reality) headset, the result of an innovative in-depth collaboration between the artist and hardware and software developers. The AR headset allows for simultaneous amplified, binaural ambient listening and audio co-composition. They also include an FM receiver module and an EMS sensor input.
In their collaborative work, Irena Pivka (artist, SI) and Brane Zorman (artist and composer, SI) explore the connection between a place, sound, a map and digital tools. They develop artistic expressions in augmented reality (AR), create site-specific soundwalks and listen to the shifted, speculative soundscapes.
Produced by CONA, 2023.
VITAL is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme by the three-year “Strasbourg European Capital” Contract and supported by the Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia and the City of Ljubljana, Departmen of Culture.
