Bojan Gagić, multimedia artist

info@bojangagic.com, +385 91 200 7435



lightune.g
sinelinea
sound and light design


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Ciphers Of Sonorous Cities

Azot After Bogdanović


P R E F A C E :   R O N A L D   P A N Z A
For Bogdan Bogdanović, an urban philosopher, a city is awareness of symbols. A city has to be thoroughly read in order to be a city, and its citizen is the one who reflects himself in his cities mirrors. If there is nothing to be read, the city can risk losing the continuity of history. Urban quandaries give opportunities for reading to exist. Many of them are obviously present; however there are those which appear differently. Sound is present in cities, as a transient but also a constitutional element.

Do physical cities also contain within them cities of sound which continually change within one sound? What is left at these locations of change are drawings, acoustic codes – they are the doors for entering these invisible cities.

Bogdanović considered Mostar a city in which "the builder builds with consideration". All those urban quandaries certainly remained beyond ordinary reality, while on them lay patches of fresh emptiness. And that demolished Mostar, the city of Bogdan Bogdanović and his friends, in its recollection is now surely a city of sound as well. It is quite possible that sound is the only tactile approach to recollection.

In his school, "Mistrija pod orahom", Bogdanović required his students to improvise. Regularly, his lectures consisted of asking students to draw a complete city, while giving them only 90 seconds to do so. Therefore, impossible and unseen constructions evolved.

In their performance Azot will, by applying the Master Craftsman’s principles, be providing their code of their city of sound, with an acousmatic and improvised approach.


AZOT (2005-2013)
Azot is an electro-acoustic drone quartet from Zagreb, Croatia. Active from 2005, the quartet started out of a wish for free musical improvising. Initially influenced by so-called onkyo style of electro-acoustic improvisation (Otomo Yoshihide, Toshimaru Nakamura, Keith Rowe, etc) which was developed from the fusion of Japanese gagaku music and western experimental tradition. These artists treat sound in a painterly manner, placing a great deal of attention to silence. This particular style of music set out to minimise the time spent between the music production and presentation. It renders the musican almost invisible, allowing one to achieve a higher level of concentration for listening and playing alike. Artistic impulses modulated by these principles manage to create temporary 'audible thoughts' unrepeatable by nature.  

The quartet, through regular meetings, has further developed these basic principles by addition of a continuous and concentrated 'empty' sound - the drone, which in its minimal shifts provides the clearest background for the ongoing actions in the soundspace. The drone somewhat resembles continuous forms of French composer Eliane Radigue but also gives a nod to white noise symbolism as well as doom metal aesthetics...

Azot has given a great number of concerts around Croatia, both solo as well as supporting various other artists, including Tetsuo Furudate, No Necks Blues Band, jgrzinich, etc. The band was also heavily involved in organising the only festival of drone, minimal and electronic music in Zagreb called SineLinea (2009-2021)





year:
curator:
medium:
first performance:
production:
2011
Amila Puzić, Mela Žuljević
audio live set
OKC Abrašević, Mostar
Abart/(RE)COLLECTING MOSTAR





copyright: all rights reserved, Bojan Gagić, 2024.