Jata C: Chronolith
| sound installation and multichannel composition
To think of geological time, the time of the sliding stones, the time of the lithosphere, the time of the continents is to think of our fleeting transience. Perhaps it is with this thought that we can evade the madness of human depletion of the Earth, marvel at its mighty fragility, appreciate the countless entities that shaped it in the volatile space and aeons of time. The rocks from the mountains were once at the bottom of the sea. All the soil was produced by bacteria that metabolised minerals. All the limestone on the Earth was squeezed out by coccolithophores, single-celled algae. Like us, they are made of calcium carbonate, both alive and dead, organic and inorganic. We recognise that this distinction is unnecessary; and yet, what matters is what world worlds world.* It is difficult to find a location on the planet that would not be transformed by humans or at least tempered by the consequences of their interventions. To world a different world, ruled by reciprocity and not authority, requires the internalisation of a different set of questions. Jata C asks, “How do we hear the stones and their aeons?”
In the Chronolith installation, the Jata C group explores the sonority of stone structures, symbols of permanence, vastness and silence. Just like rocks are the Earth’s membrane, the Chronolith is like an instrument/membrane with the help of which we translate the vibrations of the stones with transducers and return them to the stones in a feedback loop. The sound installation consists of several larger stone plates connected to transducers. The installation may be set up independently, or in a concert situation, in which the members of the group are inserted into this feedback loop between stones and humans. In the research process, the group cooperates with scientists from the field of micropaleontology, geology, physics and are supported by the Marmor Hotavlje marble mine. The group captures sounds of stones by various field recording methods (geophones, contact microphones) and analyses optical rock scans with a spectral modulator of sound parameters. The processed recordings and databases are included in electroacoustic composition with a score for live performance. Through digital analysis, translation of images into sound and vibration measurements, they create an artistic interpretation of the material sonority of the lithosphere.
* Donna J. Haraway. Staying with Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016, page 35. “It matters what worlds world worlds. It matters what stories tell stories.”
konSekvence ≡ Fragments of a Possible Ecosystem exhibition, Cukrarna, Ljubljana, 2 April 2023. Photo by Katja Goljat (KonS).
Parallel Soundscapes events, Kino Šiška, Ljubljana, 18 November 2022. Photo by Maša Pirc.
Motions: Experimental Sound Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, 10 November 2022. Photo by Sanja Bistričić Srića.
International Festival of Computer Arts, Maribor, 14 October 2022. Photo by Mitja Lorenčič.
Švicarija, Ljubljana, 30 August 2022. Photo by Miha Godec.
Research. Marmor Hotavlje & Pleše Mine, March 2022