Wetlands, as liminal zones between land and water, defy simple definitions.
These vast areas of perpetual slow decay and uncontrollable growth play a crucial role in regulating climate and terrestrial processes in deep time. They have long evoked both eerie and magical visions of worlds beyond reality on one hand and the desire for control, exploitation, and transformation of this resistant terrain on the other.
In Fantastic Glitch Swamp, elements of the marsh reclaim the urban landscape of present-day Ljubljana. The swamp seeps back with full force into what was once a diverse and fluid environment, devastated over centuries of the human colonisation of wetlands. This multimedia composition unfolds as a sound walk with augmented reality stations along the banks of the Ljubljanica River, while parts of the project are also presented as a video and AR installations in the Kamera exhibition space.
By entangling diverse media and elements – from field recordings of the bog’s unheard sounds to chimeric virtual beings – the work evokes a multitude of cultural, disciplinary, and technological attempts to contain the swamp, revealing their intrinsic gaps. Through glitch, it dismantles the limiting ideas and imaginaries of human exceptionalism, opening up a fantastically unstable zone beyond the ossified fantasy of the swamp, fluidly passing between multiple bodies and dimensions.
The AR points are accessible via the Meadows platform.
The sound walk is accessible via the Echoes platform.
A smartphone and headphones are required for listening.
Guided sound walks with the artists will take place in:
April: 4. 4. at 18:00 and 5. 4. at 14:00
May: 9. 5. at 18:00 and 10. 5. at 14:00
Advance registration is required via the following link: https://forms.gle/GkVFScow2936Z7pr8.
Free admission.
31. 3.–9. 5. 2025
***
Authors: Swamp_Matter (Eva Garibaldi and Ana Laura Richter)
Sound art: Karmen Ponikvar
Technical support: Jernej Koprivnikar
Curatorial support: Maja Burja
AR platform: Meadow
Geolocation sound platform: Echoes
Organization: Kino Šiška (represented by Jasna Jernejšek, MA)
The project was selected through a public call and carried out as part of the Kulturni Evro 2024 project.
Expert committee: Maja Burja, Simon Gmajner, Jasna Jernejšek, MA, Maja Smrekar, Uroš Veber
Co-financed by: Department for Culture of the Municipality of Ljubljana
Technical support: Projekt Atol Institute, Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana
Thanks: Klemen Brank, Lučka Centa, Maks Čelar, David Drolc, Maks Čelar, Simon Gmajner, Jan Kmet, Prirodoslovni muzej (direktor dr. Miha Jeršek, dr. Tomi Trilar), Saša Spačal, Maja Šebenik, Video Art d.o.o., ZRC SAZU – Geografski inštitut Antona Melika (dr. Aleš Smrekar), Valter Udovičić
