Symphotree / Taming the Forest
Miha Godec, Abiral Khadka, Nikita Meden, Tijana Mijušković, Kristina Pranjić, Peter Purg
Biosonification performance-process Symphotree is a next step of a hybrid research project in the art-science domainTaming the Forest. The project will premiere its performative phase at the 2022 Speculum Artium festival – the interdisciplinary research-artistic video will be continued by an experimental biosonification performance by Miha Godec and Abiral Khadka.
As a project, Taming the Forest focuses on differences in both methodologies and semiotics between art (new media, visualisation, music) and science (cultural history, critical theory, philosophy). It is based on the evident synergies between artistic and scientific approaches in research that significantly contribute to the enrichment and contextualization of the artistic process on the one hand, and the optimization and widening of scientific research results, on the other. The project joins students, artists and researchers of the School of Humanities and the School of Arts of the University of Nova Gorica.
The initial video was created for the Resonances IV SciArt summer schoolorganized by the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, in response to the theme NaturArchy: Towards a Natural Contract. In the video, Taming the Forest provides an interpretation of archival sources about forest management in the Karst at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. At the same time, it also brings new findings about forest management during the afforestation of the Karst, and timely reflections on human-nature relationship. The complexity of experiencing the forest is mediated both through maps and photographs as well as in original illustrations of local birds and recordings of their singing, complemented by images created with artificial intelligence. They are connected into a whole by a sound composition that intertwines with spoken theory on complex systems.
AUTHORS:
Miha Godec (biosonification live)
Abiral Khadka (video, music score, biosonification live)
Nikita Meden (research, visualisations and photographs)
Tijana Mijušković (research, illustrations)
Kristina Pranjić (concept, research, theory)
Peter Purg (concept, research, theory)
