Asbu, the fifth work by the duo SYNSPECIES (Elías Merino and Tadej Droljc) unfolds a fictional and symbolic audiovisual narrative about the genesis of the SYNSPECIES universe within an oblique and disorienting timeline.
Whereas the first works showed us the violent ecosystem of these audiovisual entities, Asbu takes us back in time, presenting the creation of this unique world through a cosmogonic myth. This journey describes the beginning of all things, from the emergence of the void’s elementary forces to the ritual of the universe’s shaping and the birth of the first objects.
The project is inspired by virtual ecologies, establishing unstable morphological spaces that emerge from a devastating interaction of co-existing unrelated entities with the void. They co-create a world of unreal physicality that is constantly kneaded by violent forces. Their existence appears to be a fractured narrative in the perceptual phenomena that resemble a chain of synchronised chaos. The vivid abstract objects of SYNSPECIES fluctuate in an ambiguous pulsating time, hybridising and shaping new spaces confined in a perpetual disintegration process. The work explores concepts and topics such as speculative fiction, the weird, superstition, a particular view of cyberspace, the sublime, the harsh realities of nature’s workings, new materialism and object-oriented ontology, dream visions, and myths and folktales.
The SYNSPECIES project, which the artists have been developing since 2018, has been featured at renowned international festivals such as L.E.V. (Gijon and Matadero), MUTEK (Montreal and Mexico), Sónar (Istanbul), Philharmonie de Paris (Biennale NEMO), Lunchmeat Festival, Sonica Glasgow, Semibreve Festival, Tentacular, Neoshibuya, OSA Festival, NODE Festival and others.
More: https://synspecies.com/Asbu
Elías Merino is a Madrid-based artist who works mainly with sound. His projects include installation, compositions and live performances that drift from algorithmic abstract computer music to contemporary experimental electronics and instrumental music. He also links his practice with different approaches related to speculative futures and fiction, post-digital materiality, object-oriented composition, and posthumanities. His work has been performed and exhibited across Japan, the U.S., Spain, Latin America, UK, Slovenia, Canada, South Korea, Romania, Portugal, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Finland, and the Netherlands. His recorded albums have been released by different labels, including Room40 and Superpang, among others. Elías holds a PhD in composition at the Centre for Research in New Music at the University of Huddersfield.
Tadej Droljc is a Slovenian artist and creative coder who works at the intersection of sound, image and light. His work received the Lumen Prize Student Award and the Dennis Smalley Scholarship in Electroacoustic Music, and he received the Most Promising Video Artist award at Madatac. His practice-based doctoral research received the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Thesis at the Centre for Research in New Music. He has performed and exhibited at festivals such as Ars Electronica, Mutek, Paris Biennale NEMO, L.E.V., Brighton Digital Festival, Semibreve, Sonica Glasgow, Lunchmeat, Node etc. As part of his collaboration with Ars Electronica’s Future Lab on the project Immersify, his work is included in the permanent exhibition at Ars Electronica’s Deep Space 8K and has been featured at events like Inter BEE Tokyo, IBC Amsterdam and Marché du Film – Festival de Cannes.
The opening event of the V-F-X Ljubljana Festival of Experimental Audiovisual Practices, which takes place at the Slovenian Cinematheque, Kino Šiška and Aksioma.
+ at 10 pm AV installation Tadej Droljc: Fracture Point @ Komuna / free entry (+ 15. 5. from 12.00–22.00)
Organisation: SCCA-Ljubljana and Kino Šiška.
The V-F-X Ljubljana Festival is supported by the Slovenian Film Centre, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the Municipality of Ljubljana – Department of Culture
