Cona events source

The night sound walk takes us on a search of silence and listening to the inaudible, during the time of the night moths yamamayu, which represent the syntropic bonds between distant and nearby territories. The night sound walk takes us into the magical world of nocturnal butterflies, which, as symbionts, represent the syntropic links between nature and culture in Tivoli Park. The series of listening scores aims to intervene in the dominant perceptual agenda and highlight the potentials of aural perception. Hearing is closely related to the capacity for a complex understanding of reality and compassion, the basis for inclusive resonance. How to listen to the invisible? How to perceive beings that do not want to be heard?

Listening to the seemingly inaudible and wandering in night landscapes (which can also be just a reduction of the visual field and listening to the tiny impulses of one’s own body and anima) addresses the sonority of the apparent silence and bioacoustics from the direction of the territory. Japanese silk moths (Antheraea yamamai) inhabit tall deciduous forests, living primarily high in the treetops. These nocturnal butterflies leave behind large light green silk cocoons. Dislocated nocturnal incomers, they managed to flee into the open canopy of the surrounding trees when the locals ventured into silk farming a century ago. Originating in the hills of Japan, they have spread across south-east Europe.

YAMAMAYU Night Wanderings drew on the artist’s ongoing poetic exploration of Japanese silk moths and moths in general, echolocation, the ability of nocturnal moths to absorb sound as protection against predators, silence, the modality of moving/not moving, and the sophistication of the personal aural field in terms of territory.

Walking from Scores is a collection of around one hundred non-site-specific scores created by artists, composers and collectives involving walking, listening and sound-making in urban space. The project explores the relationship between the aesthetic and the everyday, the dynamics of sound and listening in urban environments, and the porous boundaries between artist and audience.

It draws from two premises: (1) an interest in walking as a relational practice and a way to establish interaction with places and to read and reinterpret urban space, and (2) a focus on verbal notation and text scores as catalysts for action and open invitations addressed to everyone.

The title refers to Ken Friedman’s text Working from Scores (1990), which examined the notion of musicality in visual and intermedia art and questioned ideas of authenticity, intention and meaning. The project is based on the reproduction and redistribution of the collection and its reactivation in context-specific forms.

The archaeology and choreography of Alisa Oleva’s urban sound studio are composed of surfaces, traces, borders, intervals, silences, passages and fissures. Through sound walks as an artistic form and a method of exploring contemporary social realities, she invites listeners and participants to reconsider their relationship with the urban environment, the treatment of disappearing nature, and the role of individuals and society in the process of sensory purification.

The foundations of her practice lie in the ability to think and create conditions for renaturalization and in developing sound walking as a ritual.

This is an invitation to walk together through the streets of Ljubljana, focusing on soundscapes and on sounds present and absent. The walk begins with a collective tuning-in exercise, followed by silent walking and focused listening, and concludes with a discussion.

Listening to nature’s sounds which accompany us daily, is rarely acknowledged as an environment from Ancient Place, showing nature, culture, and modern way of living’s complexity. Listening to such complexity enables the listener to reflect on the present moment as a past, present, and future entity of now.

The work has been created for the SoundCamp festival 2021, project Accoustic Commons. The artist has premiered live from location Debela Griža and has then said: »The recordings collected since 2014 confront the here-and-now sound at Debela griža in the vicinity of Volčji grad, Karst region. A geophone is also used. The composition combines selected archive sounds and live sound in electro-acoustic processing of ‘frequency slices’ and multi-stage sound granulation. The outcome is confronted with the sounds on the Locustream SoundMap. The project recorded in binaural format will be performed at the Right atrium Rotovž and accessible on mobile devices. The use of headphones is recommended. The sound event will start with live open microphones broadcast that will be joined by electro-acoustic composition. In the end, the sound will fuse in the Ancient Place Master Mix«.

 

 

The night sound walk takes us on a search of silence and listening to the inaudible, during the time of the night moths yamamayu, which represent the syntropic bonds between distant and nearby territories. The night sound walk takes us into the magical world of nocturnal butterflies, which, as symbionts, represent the syntropic links between nature and culture in Tivoli Park. The series of listening scores aims to intervene in the dominant perceptual agenda and highlight the potentials of aural perception. Hearing is closely related to the capacity for a complex understanding of reality and compassion, the basis for inclusive resonance. How to listen to the invisible? How to perceive beings that do not want to be heard?

Listening to the seemingly inaudible and wandering in night landscapes (which can also be just a reduction of the visual field and listening to the tiny impulses of one’s own body and anima) addresses the sonority of the apparent silence and bioacoustics from the direction of the territory. Japanese silk moths (Antheraea yamamai) inhabit tall deciduous forests, living primarily high in the treetops. These nocturnal butterflies leave behind large light green silk cocoons. Dislocated nocturnal incomers, they managed to flee into the open canopy of the surrounding trees when the locals ventured into silk farming a century ago. Originating in the hills of Japan, they have spread across south-east Europe.

YAMAMAYU Night Wanderings drew on the artist’s ongoing poetic exploration of Japanese silk moths and moths in general, echolocation, the ability of nocturnal moths to absorb sound as protection against predators, silence, the modality of moving/not moving, and the sophistication of the personal aural field in terms of territory.

Chronolith consists of a complex multi-channel sound composition and stone slab installation. In the work, the bioacoustic group Jata C investigates the acoustics and temporal dimensions of stone structures and their sustainability and interdependence with humans.

The artists obtained the sound material for the composition via field recordings of various locations and quarries. The installation serves as a stone instrument, a sensory extension of the human body, with which the composition and the vibrations of the stones are fed back into the materiality of the slabs with the help of transducers, forming a feedback loop. During the production of the work, the artists collaborated with scientists from micropaleontology, geology and physics, and the supporter of the project, the company Marmor Hotavlje.

beepblip [Ida Hiršenfelder], a member of Jata C, wrote about the work:
To think of geological time, the time of the sailing rocks, the time of the lithosphere, and the time of the continents is to think of our insignificance in the big picture, our mortality (dust to dust), and fleeting transience. It is a realisation that might motivate us to stop the insane depletion of the Earth and instead marvel at its mighty delicacy and appreciate the innumerable entities that shaped it in the volatile space and aeons of time. The rocks from the mountains used to be the seabed. The first organic matter in soil was produced by bacteria. Much limestone on the Earth originates from the activity of coccolithophores, unicellular algae covered in calcium carbonate scales. Like us, they are both alive and dead, organic and inorganic. We know too well such distinction is needless; however, it matters what worlds world worlds.[1] It is almost impossible to find a place on the planet not dictated by humans or at least transfigured as the consequences of human interventions. To the world, a different world, ruled by reciprocity and not authority, requires internalising different questions. Jata C asks, “How can we hear a stone and its aeons?”

[1] Donna J. Haraway. Staying with Trouble. Min in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016, p. 35. “It matters what worlds world worlds. It matters what stories tell stories.“

Multichannel Sound Installation

In the live sound event, Jata C performs Kronolit based on a precomposed score that allows for improvisation. Using a multichannel spatial sound system, sound moves between rocks and walls, resonates through the stone slabs, and evokes a tangible presence of geological time.

Live Sound Event

The installation invites visitors into a stone-based resonant space, where the sound narrative opens up a different experience of time — slow, massive, and all-encompassing. The composition interweaves sounds of cracking, grinding, vibrating, and distant echoes — embedded in a narrative of Earth that does not borrow rhythm from humans but shapes its own across the eons.

The multi-channel sound installation Vitreous Sky by intermedia artist Marko Batista continues his exploration of contemporary post-fact society in relation to technological progress and the interconnectedness of society, nature and technology within the framework of ecocritical discourse, environmental policies and current humanist concepts such as nature, the Anthropocene and the capitalist colonial matrix.

The work builds upon Batista’s earlier projects, particularly Fluid Particles of Volcanic Ash, in which the indirect presence of humanity is revealed through devastated landscapes and traces of (post)humanoid existence. At the core of the exhibition are two precisely crafted interactive hybrid visual-sound objects, prototypes of a dystopian habitat of the future, addressing the project on both symbolic and practical levels.

The installation consists of a visual and a sonic component. The visual part is formed by a two-part mimetic installation with a post-natural environment produced using 3D printing, establishing a dialogue between urban and rural habitats. The sonic structure is based on the electrolysis of toxic compounds, which generate sound through processes of self-oscillation and extraction within an expanded electronic system. By attributing agency to matter itself, the work remains open-ended and allows space for unpredictability.

Ambisonic sound event and multi-channel sound installation

The Tree Spirits| Touch sound work reflects on the life of a tree, speculating on its acoustic component, and explores the interaction of an individual part of a plant with the colony of organisms and the forest biotic community. The sound recordings give voice to the existence of a tree in its annual and life cycles which begin and end in silence. The silence anticipating the springtime resurgence of sap flow, and the silence of destruction caused by climate change, drought, and fires. Brane Zorman is one of the three winners of Palma Ars Acoustica EBU competition 2022. You can read more about the conceptualization of work in the pdf notebook (link here) or buy printed verison of the booklet (here).

The artist zeros in on the touch; touch as an expression of genuine concern and awareness of the coexistence with plants, and a destructive touch of environmental devastation. The sounds of touching a tree trunk, branches rubbing against each other, the crushing of loose bark, the foliage, the rustling of trees in the wind, water drenching the roots – an acoustic journey through the physical existence of a tree. All the way to branch breaking, tree falling and a fire, a warning of the upcoming drought which is always a hard blow to a forest habitat.

Live Sound Event

Brane Zorman performs a live adaptation of Spirit of Trees | Touch, a work that evolved over two years in different phases and intensities. The performance employs spatial ambisonic technology and Silent Disco equipment, consisting of multiple micro FM transmitters and short-range headphones operating on various frequencies. The sound immerses the listener from all directions, creating an intense sonic experience where tones blend, shift, and reshape within a 360° spherical space. The ambisonic system allows the artist to manipulate spatial layers of sound while simultaneously transmitting them through conventional stereo headphones. Listening becomes a multi-dimensional experience, dissolving the boundaries between the audience and the sonic environment.

Art Installation

The installation demonstrates, investigates, and records the changes in the electrical conductivity, which are the result of the intensive drying process of the individual tree cookies (sliced portions of a tree trunk), converting the parameters – through heat, electrical and oscillation sensors, and converters – in the visual and acoustic forms. The cookies dry up and crack. They are colonised by microbes, mould, and fungi, and in the process of decomposition change their forms. Symbolically, these newly formed tree structures confront us with the shortage of water and moisture. The composition with the recorded and processed tree sounds, produced both within the organism as well as when touched by a human or the environment, builds an emotional and dramatic narrative charged with the natural and amplified sounds comingling and entwining. A dynamic 8-channel installation pulls the listener in the very centre of a sound happening.

The Sound Microscope workshop is designed for children who want to explore sounds that usually remain unheard. Participants first learn basic principles of sound transmission and then test them through practical listening exercises and collaborative activities.

The mentors introduce both mechanical and digital versions of the sound microscope and demonstrate how contact microphones work. Participants build a simple mechanical device for amplifying quiet sounds and use it to discover hidden sonic details in their surroundings.

Ambisonic sound event and multi-channel sound installation

The Tree Spirits| Touch sound work reflects on the life of a tree, speculating on its acoustic component, and explores the interaction of an individual part of a plant with the colony of organisms and the forest biotic community. The sound recordings give voice to the existence of a tree in its annual and life cycles which begin and end in silence. The silence anticipating the springtime resurgence of sap flow, and the silence of destruction caused by climate change, drought, and fires. Brane Zorman is one of the three winners of Palma Ars Acoustica EBU competition 2022. You can read more about the conceptualization of work in the pdf notebook (link here) or buy printed verison of the booklet (here).

The artist zeros in on the touch; touch as an expression of genuine concern and awareness of the coexistence with plants, and a destructive touch of environmental devastation. The sounds of touching a tree trunk, branches rubbing against each other, the crushing of loose bark, the foliage, the rustling of trees in the wind, water drenching the roots – an acoustic journey through the physical existence of a tree. All the way to branch breaking, tree falling and a fire, a warning of the upcoming drought which is always a hard blow to a forest habitat.

Live Sound Event

Brane Zorman performs a live adaptation of Spirit of Trees | Touch, a work that evolved over two years in different phases and intensities. The performance employs spatial ambisonic technology and Silent Disco equipment, consisting of multiple micro FM transmitters and short-range headphones operating on various frequencies. The sound immerses the listener from all directions, creating an intense sonic experience where tones blend, shift, and reshape within a 360° spherical space. The ambisonic system allows the artist to manipulate spatial layers of sound while simultaneously transmitting them through conventional stereo headphones. Listening becomes a multi-dimensional experience, dissolving the boundaries between the audience and the sonic environment.

Art Installation

The installation demonstrates, investigates, and records the changes in the electrical conductivity, which are the result of the intensive drying process of the individual tree cookies (sliced portions of a tree trunk), converting the parameters – through heat, electrical and oscillation sensors, and converters – in the visual and acoustic forms. The cookies dry up and crack. They are colonised by microbes, mould, and fungi, and in the process of decomposition change their forms. Symbolically, these newly formed tree structures confront us with the shortage of water and moisture. The composition with the recorded and processed tree sounds, produced both within the organism as well as when touched by a human or the environment, builds an emotional and dramatic narrative charged with the natural and amplified sounds comingling and entwining. A dynamic 8-channel installation pulls the listener in the very centre of a sound happening.

Ambisonic sound event and multi-channel sound installation

The Tree Spirits| Touch sound work reflects on the life of a tree, speculating on its acoustic component, and explores the interaction of an individual part of a plant with the colony of organisms and the forest biotic community. The sound recordings give voice to the existence of a tree in its annual and life cycles which begin and end in silence. The silence anticipating the springtime resurgence of sap flow, and the silence of destruction caused by climate change, drought, and fires. Brane Zorman is one of the three winners of Palma Ars Acoustica EBU competition 2022. You can read more about the conceptualization of work in the pdf notebook (link here) or buy printed verison of the booklet (here).

The artist zeros in on the touch; touch as an expression of genuine concern and awareness of the coexistence with plants, and a destructive touch of environmental devastation. The sounds of touching a tree trunk, branches rubbing against each other, the crushing of loose bark, the foliage, the rustling of trees in the wind, water drenching the roots – an acoustic journey through the physical existence of a tree. All the way to branch breaking, tree falling and a fire, a warning of the upcoming drought which is always a hard blow to a forest habitat.

Live Sound Event

Brane Zorman performs a live adaptation of Spirit of Trees | Touch, a work that evolved over two years in different phases and intensities. The performance employs spatial ambisonic technology and Silent Disco equipment, consisting of multiple micro FM transmitters and short-range headphones operating on various frequencies. The sound immerses the listener from all directions, creating an intense sonic experience where tones blend, shift, and reshape within a 360° spherical space. The ambisonic system allows the artist to manipulate spatial layers of sound while simultaneously transmitting them through conventional stereo headphones. Listening becomes a multi-dimensional experience, dissolving the boundaries between the audience and the sonic environment.

Art Installation

The installation demonstrates, investigates, and records the changes in the electrical conductivity, which are the result of the intensive drying process of the individual tree cookies (sliced portions of a tree trunk), converting the parameters – through heat, electrical and oscillation sensors, and converters – in the visual and acoustic forms. The cookies dry up and crack. They are colonised by microbes, mould, and fungi, and in the process of decomposition change their forms. Symbolically, these newly formed tree structures confront us with the shortage of water and moisture. The composition with the recorded and processed tree sounds, produced both within the organism as well as when touched by a human or the environment, builds an emotional and dramatic narrative charged with the natural and amplified sounds comingling and entwining. A dynamic 8-channel installation pulls the listener in the very centre of a sound happening.

The multi-channel sound installation Vitreous Sky by intermedia artist Marko Batista continues his exploration of contemporary post-fact society in relation to technological progress and the interconnectedness of society, nature and technology within the framework of ecocritical discourse, environmental policies and current humanist concepts such as nature, the Anthropocene and the capitalist colonial matrix.

The work builds upon Batista’s earlier projects, particularly Fluid Particles of Volcanic Ash, in which the indirect presence of humanity is revealed through devastated landscapes and traces of (post)humanoid existence. At the core of the exhibition are two precisely crafted interactive hybrid visual-sound objects, prototypes of a dystopian habitat of the future, addressing the project on both symbolic and practical levels.

The installation consists of a visual and a sonic component. The visual part is formed by a two-part mimetic installation with a post-natural environment produced using 3D printing, establishing a dialogue between urban and rural habitats. The sonic structure is based on the electrolysis of toxic compounds, which generate sound through processes of self-oscillation and extraction within an expanded electronic system. By attributing agency to matter itself, the work remains open-ended and allows space for unpredictability.

The multi-channel sound installation Vitreous Sky by intermedia artist Marko Batista continues his exploration of contemporary post-fact society in relation to technological progress and the interconnectedness of society, nature and technology within the framework of ecocritical discourse, environmental policies and current humanist concepts such as nature, the Anthropocene and the capitalist colonial matrix.

The work builds upon Batista’s earlier projects, particularly Fluid Particles of Volcanic Ash, in which the indirect presence of humanity is revealed through devastated landscapes and traces of (post)humanoid existence. At the core of the exhibition are two precisely crafted interactive hybrid visual-sound objects, prototypes of a dystopian habitat of the future, addressing the project on both symbolic and practical levels.

The installation consists of a visual and a sonic component. The visual part is formed by a two-part mimetic installation with a post-natural environment produced using 3D printing, establishing a dialogue between urban and rural habitats. The sonic structure is based on the electrolysis of toxic compounds, which generate sound through processes of self-oscillation and extraction within an expanded electronic system. By attributing agency to matter itself, the work remains open-ended and allows space for unpredictability.

parkParty is an outdoor workshop where participants discover how contemporary artists observe and interpret nature through listening and guided movement in space. The workshop encourages community building, spatial awareness, and focused perception of sound.

The format uses a silent disco system: participants follow sound guidance through headphones while the mentor leads tasks and reflection through live microphone communication. Selected examples of sound artworks support the practical exploration process.

Interweaving Soundscapes is situated at the crossroads of science and art. Scientific research into animal vibrational signals, known as biotremology, is artistically compelling due to its sonic manifestation of animal activity, which through specific organisation of sound mass can also extend into the field of interspecies communication.

The exhibition presents two spiders of the species Araneus diadematus placed on a specially designed structure that forms the core of the installation. Spider webs function not only as traps but also as extensions of the spiders’ sensory systems. Vibrations transmitted through the web are inaudible to the human ear, yet the installation reveals this hidden sonic world.

The composition consists of raw recordings of insect and spider activity, later electronically processed. Most recordings were made in the studios of the Cona Institute and Boštjan Perovšek using custom-made piezo sensors. Selected recordings were produced at Tomás Saraceno’s studio and from Roland Mühlethaler’s private sound archive.

The two-hour broadcast explores the meaning and breadth of sound walks – an artistic format that focuses on sensitizing our perception of the environment and questioning our involvement and influence on it.

This tour presents Ljubljana from an ecological perspective and introduces places that cultivate an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability by creatively combining urban planning, geography, art, science and local initiatives.

The tour includes Steklenik, a gallery for sound, bioacoustics and art located in the east wing of the Tivoli Greenhouse, and Krater, a temporary production space that emerged from an abandoned, crater-like construction site near the city center. The Municipality of Ljubljana, together with numerous environmental NGOs and small businesses, continuously develops community-based solutions to pressing ecological issues.

Ljubljana is rich in green spaces, cycling paths, drinking fountains, urban gardens and beehives, as well as innovative artistic initiatives that connect local communities through shared public programmes and spaces. In addition to discovering these environmentally friendly urban sites, the tour also offers critical reflections, proposals for improvement and perspectives on addressing climate change in Slovenia.

The 8-channel sound composition (dis)solutions II reflects on proximity between bodies through water. Our bodies are a myriad of things, composed of equal amounts of human cells and microorganisms, with 70% being water in constant exchange. Our cells change according to our surroundings, and in the quantum world we may even exist in several places at once. We are not stable.

The sound piece opens with a quote by Astrida Neimanis: “Everyone both lives in and is a drain.” In her work Bodies of Water, Neimanis writes: “As bodies of water, we leak and seethe, our borders always vulnerable to rupture and renegotiation,” connecting human bodies with worlds beyond the human.

Sound, omnipresent and ephemeral, physical yet intangible, powerfully represents this complex mesh of relations. It undulates through us and ricochets off our skin. We are in constant negotiation with other bodies, also through sound waves. The composition guides the listener through these encounters, from planetary to watery and microscopic scales.

The composition includes field recordings, hydrophone, electromagnetic and ultrasound recordings, as well as sounds of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, electromagnetic waves, rowing, underground sewer systems, rain, rivers and wind.

The project explores the river as a water body that constantly flows “through place and time of human history”, leaving behind traces that become an inevitable part of the environment and a proof of coexistence between nature and humans.

Through the soundwalk, participants learn about the notion of coexistence while discovering the history and ethnography of the river, created jointly by water and human activity. The river shapes life, defines our living spaces, delivers and takes away goods – it is a body of water travelling through space and time.

Exploring rivers through people’s narratives reveals recurring problems and challenges while suggesting possible ways of cohabiting with rivers and living alongside them. Every water body coexists with humans and vice versa; people live with rivers that have sustained their lives. Over time, these roles have shifted and transformed into manipulative exploitation of resources and destruction of habitats.

The project is based on interviews with local residents and experts on the Sava River, research into the city’s development around it and an exploration of the Majdičev log area. The many layers of stories reflect the intertwinement of people and environment that shaped and witnessed the river’s transformation throughout the history of Kranj and the Sava Island.