Fragment “Opera of things” (2019)
Opera of Things (2019) for velicon, voice, 3 power banks, 2 ventilators, plasma lamp, 4 adapters, remote control, virtual keyboard and bat detector is a composition for solo performer focused on movement, proximity and reanimation.
Link to Jasna Veličković’s website:
Jasna Veličković (RS/NL) is the Belgrade-born Dutch composer and performer based in Amsterdam. Her artistic output has been developed through an interaction between a life-long fascination with the sound, an enduring interest in an intricate encounter between music and technology, and an inclination toward experimentation. Since 2008 she has been exploring the musical capacities of the (electro) magnetic field – induction, interference – both as the source of sound and the compositional material. This preoccupation of hers became an ongoing research artistic project that she dubbed The Art of Coil.
The electro-acoustic instrument Velicon consists of a metal plate with magnetic figures and coils. By moving a coil over the magnets, Veličković makes their magnetic fields audible and makes their ‘voices’ sound. In a related way she makes the ‘voices’ of power adapters or remote controls audible. The title of this work refers to the ‘internet of things’ in which everyday objects such as a lamp or thermostat are also connected to the internet. In the times of cool new gadgets and its overproduction, Jasna finds her treasure sounds in reuse of the abandoned devices, orphaned technologies, devices that would never thought of being used as a music instruments. She develops a specific performance language, born out of electromagnetic induction. She plays everyday objects and magnets. She highlights the sounds that are not audible. in short: Aimed at things that are already there rather than creating new, Opera of Things drugs us into the electromagnetic field where the interference and magnetic field become the foreground sound. Premiere: May 19, 2019 TENT Rotterdam.