Creative and research residency.
The new project by contemporary composer Jug Marković and experimental vocalist Thea Soti is an attempt to reinvent the monodramatic opera format and question the contemporary role of the human voice in digital environments. The piece is envisaged for solo voice and electronics, with possible multimedia elements (different screen sizes, smartphones, etc.).
Following their collaboration at Ircam-Centre Pompidou (Paris) on defiant walks barefoot (2021), a piece for voice, electronics and video, Marković and Soti set out to explore multiple identities through the manipulation of the human voice, and to find inspiration in the everyday multimedia devices that accompany our current way of life. The non-traditional text of the proposed new piece would be set by Marković and Soti, who investigate and reflect on modern methods of communication.
TRASHOLD is a piece without a traditional linear narrative. It is not a single script, but rather an immersive collection of stories, pieces of conversation, imprints of interactions that add up to an experimental but coherent narrative, depicting the chaotic mode of communication in modern society. TRASHOLD plays with different identities not only through the manipulation of the human voice, but also through different screens on stage, where virtual bodies collide with physical presence, creating characters who exist only at the intersection of these two realities. Both Marković and Soti will be active in the compositional process as well as the performance, blurring the boundaries between composer and performer. TRASHOLD is about semi-cyber interactions, intimacy, isolation, technology and modern escapism.
Research and production partners
SWR Experimentalstudio, Freiburg (DE) ; Transparent Sound New Music Festival, Budapest (HU) ; GRAME, Lyon (FR) pending ; GMEM, Marseille (FR)
Jug Marković
Composer
Jug Marković (1987) is a Serbian composer born in Belgrade, active in the fields of acoustic, electroacoustic and electronic music. He is particularly interested in stylistic heterogeneity, the hybridization of genres and the exploration / recontextualization of sonic manners and gestures that have historically been charged with a certain meaning and connotation. Jug's music has been performed at music festivals in Europe such as ManiFeste, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Biennale Nemo, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, New Music Dublin, Sacrum Profanum, Sommer in Stuttgart and others. He is the winner of the 2019 ISCM Young Composers Prize for the choral piece Nirvana and recipient of the 2019 Stevan Mokranjac Prize (the highest recognition for composition awarded by the Serbian Ministry of Culture). Jug's music has been performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Divertimento, Mivos Quartet, Diotima Quartet, TANA Quartet, United Instruments of Lucilin, Neue Vokalsolisten, Latvian Radio Choir, Chamber Choir Ireland, Croatian Radio-TV Choir, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic and Serbian Radio-Television Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has been composer-in-residence at the Cité des Arts in Paris, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and Snape Maltings in the UK. Jug studied at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Ircam-Centre Pompidou in Paris and the HMDK in Stuttgart.
Thea Soti
Multidisciplinary artist
Thea Soti is a multidisciplinary artist working in the fields of experimental vocal music, electronic sound, installation, textual media and video art. She uses digitally manipulated sounds, the human voice and poetry in different formats, continually manipulating and processing her own voice. Her main aim is to recontextualize the human voice and challenge the preconceptions attached to it by pushing the boundaries of what the sound of a human voice can be. She has worked and toured internationally in New York, Paris, Copenhagen, London, Budapest, Belgrade, Berlin, Moscow, Marrakech and Tokyo, and has been invited as artist-in-residence at Sonoscopia Porto.
She has been invited as artist-in-residence at Sonoscopia Porto (PT), BMC Budapest (HU), Balassi Institute Brussels (BE), Tarabya Cultural Academy (TR) in Istanbul, Immersive Arts Space Zürich (CH), Montévidéo Marseille (FR) or Cité internationale des Arts in Paris (FR). She has worked as a soloist with Ircam-Centre Pompidou Paris, Luxembourg Art Week, Goethe Institut, Frac Grande Large and has been selected as a SHAPE+ artist for 2022 / 2023. Her solo album ØVER+ has just been released by the experimental Parisian label Planisphère. Her solo performances explore the boundaries of gender, language, memory and social affiliation, exploring virtual and posthuman identities through the voice.
Thea Soti
composition, vocals, text
Jug Marković
composition, electronics, text