A Small Contribution to the Genesis of Everyday LifeNika Autor (SI), Miha Ciglar (SI)

performance, 2008

A Small Contribution to the Genesis of Everyday Life is a performative piece for two, where both performers are constitutive parts of the audovisual instrument they play on. They are both electrically connected to the instruments’ electronic network so the audio and the video signals which are projected to the audience run through both their bodies in their primary (electric) form. Sound is the domain of the first performer, whereas the second is in charge of the video part.

Sound is generated mainly through feedback connections of mixing boards. There are three static video cameras in the electronic network, one filming performer number one only the second is focused on performer number two while the third is films both of them together. The video performer has the choice of the video signal presented on a cathodic monitor, which is also part of the network. The radiation from the monitor is a crucial factor concerning the auditory materialization of the piece, since the changing proximity of the audio performer in relation to it changes the electronic current in the instrument and consequentially the sonic output. Both the audio and the video signal are fed into the video input of the monitor, so a change in audio also affects the content of the video, but merely distorts the images of the live video input. The audio performer can now decide whether he wants to interact (get closer or in touch) with the monitor screen or he can do the same with the video performer.

Nika Autor (SI)

Nika Autor was born in 1982 in Maribor. She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, and during her studies she participated in two exchange programs: at Satakunta Polytechnic Fine Art Kankaanpäi in Finland (2005) and at the University of Fine Arts Poznan in Poland (2006). In her work she focuses on the relation of the artist to his everyday environment. Autor is engaged in painting, printmaking, photography, video and performing arts, and has exhibited her work in many national and international galleries and art festivals.

www.autor.si
nika.autor@avtonomija.org

Miha Ciglar (SI)

Miha Ciglar is a composer and sound artist currently studying at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz, Austria. Originally from Maribor, Slovenia, Ciglar now lives and works in Western Europe. Since 2001 he has performed his own compositions for saxophone, guitar, vibraphone, double bass, electro-acoustical performances, interactive dance performances, computer music and audiovisual installations at many art festivals all around the world.

His work has strong conceptual fundaments and points away from expressive values of common aesthetic ideals. A subject of high concern and priority is the problem of absolute awareness of sonic perception which is directly connected with the question of existential legitimacy of sound art. Ciglars compositional approach and attitude towards technological solutions are very similar and rooted in a revaluation of existent ‘material’, resulting in its preliminary decomposition, in order to absorb its originally suggestive character for an employment in the further process of creation.