installations

The work Patient Love is a live-set recording conceptualized for To Be Continued 2021 Music Marathon, an original concert lasting 24 hours, during which Stazione di Topolo is broadcasting live sets from many countries worldwide. The event, which covers World TB Day in its entirety was coordinated by Antonio Della Marina and Moreno Miorelli. The initiative is under the aegis of the Global Health Incubator, established in July 2009 in Topolò by Dr. Mario Raviglione, today professor in Global Health at the University of Milan, to create links between the world of creativity and that of science.

As I needed to lift this work further, I invited multi-talented artist Aleksandar Lazar to contemplate ambient visuals for the sonic scaffolding of the Patient Love, as we already did together several times in the past through concert performances, employing intuitive composing, improvisation, live cinema, and inexhaustible source of audio-visual magic — a cymatic plate.

In 2023, the work won The Golden Award for Extended Media by The Association of Fine Artists of Serbia.

Patient Love contains decomposed sequence by Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin's piano sonata no. 8, performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Patient Love

Depression for Bass Clarinet is a graphic & object score made for the exhibition The Flickerings [org. in Serbian, Treperenja] presented in 2018. Graphic is an appropriation of a series of miniatures/drawings made with black marker on small pieces of crepe paper. The context is driven by my efforts to objectivize depression and challenge the rational boundaries of The Body by inhabiting it with an abstract but fully self-defined object - a body of its own. Which is deeply interwoven with all intrinsic functions of The Body, and behaves as a nexus-point between psychological and physical, further conditioning The Body's overall well-being. The work reflects my research on the energy traits of sound and its formative effects on the extended body-mind.
Interpretation of the score was made in 2018 by Serbian clarinetist Vasa Vučković [http://vasavuckovic.com/]

Depression For Bass Clarinet [graph. score Manja Ristić; interpretation Vasa Vučković]

sound composed for the exhibition THE CHAIN by Simonida Rajcević, as a part of the Resonate Festival 2014.

excerpt from the text by Srdjan Tunić, JOURNY IN TO THE UNKNOWN, see full text at simonidasimonida.com 

The exhibition consists of three sculptural installations that form a multimedia ambient ensemble. Three different animals - a bull, ravens and a horse - are executed in life-size by 3-D printing technique and coated in shiny black. The sculptures imitate the animal figures, albeit deviating from naturalism through stylisation and a blurring of detail, which add to the impression that they are models. Each of the animals could be associated with a story, viewed as an element unto itself or in correlation with the others...

...The last artefact is a recumbent horse on the floor of a separate room. The horse lies in a pose that is ambiguous: it could be sleeping, as horses can sleep both standing and lying down, or it could be dead. In the words of the artist herself, this work was inspired by Lars von Triers' film Melancholy, specifically the scene when John dies, as well as by numerous paintings of horses by Theodore Gericault. The whole space is enveloped in experimental ambient music written by Manja Ristić.

from All naked, released March 5, 2016

Manja Ristić, samples, field recording
Composition "GO" by Rastko Lazić
The Great Spirit of Vrnik, field recording
PJ Harvey's England Shake excerpt
Sculpture by Simonida Rajčević

The Horse, exhibition of sculptural installations by Simonida Rajčević 2014

Sounds for exhibition of drawings by Simonida Rajčević — The First Cut, held at the Gallery of Contemporary Arts Museum, Belgrade,  Oct / Nov 2014.

full exhibition preview > https://www.simonidasimonida.com/fotke/thefirstcut2014/thefirstcut%202014.html

The First Cut — exhibition of drawings by Simonida Rajčević 2014

Synaptic Reveries is an audio-visual work produced in collaboration with visual artist Mario Kolarić. Mario and I have a few collaborative actions behind us, and we hope this is only the beginning of a larger-scale collection, exhibition, or AV installation.

The new collaboration is symbolically inspired by the synaptic space — a scientific model of synapse function where "communication" between two neurons occurs, a space for information exchange essential for most subsequent functions of the nervous system. Ultimately, the context of this work relies on the concept of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who extensively studied the state of ataraxia — a state of lucid calmness. This complex ancient philosophical concept has various interpretations, and "Synaptic Reveries" aligns with those that bring mental-emotional balance and support sensory ecologies opposing the cacophony of everyday life, informational saturation, and the commercialization of human perception and attention.

Some of the sounds included in the work are the biggest waves on Earth, recorded at Praia do Nort and Praia da Nazare, in Portugal.

All sounds recorded & composed by Manja Ristić
All visual content by Mario Kolarić
Mastering by Goran Simonoski / La Plant Studio

This project is supported by the Dubrovnik-Neretva County Department of Education, Culture, and Sports.

Synaptic Reveries

Dedicated to Vladimir Divljan, Yugoslavian singer, song-writer, sound artists, New Wave music icon. Vlada died of cancer in March 2015, leaving behind vast archive of music and urban culture heritage. Celebrating his dedication to music and sound, I'm inviting you to grab the Radio Divljan frequencies, trapped in the broken apparatus of our times - tuning only to his voice, songs, breath - inviting us to look up and embrace the Star he was and the Star he returned to.  

Material used //
Carbon star *NASA sounds
Personal field recordings
Composed samples
Song excerpts: Nemo, Sve što hoću da znam, Hajde sanjaj me sanjaj, Purger koji kaže bre, Australian letter (from the movie - Que Sont Mes Amis Devenus)

Radio Divljan

excerpt from an installation following an exhibition by Simonida Raječević, Belgrade Cultural Centre, August 6th, 2020.

Lažni bol - exhibition of paintings & objects by Simonida Rajčević

Audio work for an exhibition of paintings & objects by Simonida Rajčević, Belgrade Cultural Center, August 2020.

DOB Gallery Belgrade October 13th >>> sound installation for the exhibition of drawings and paintings by Simonida Rajčević
http://simonidasimonida.com/

installations

Manja Ristic