Artist Residency in Plovdiv
This is a small report/overview of my ADATA residency in Plovdiv, Bulgaria from 5/11/2018 to 18/11/2018. During my residency period I run two different projects that ended up combined in a concert/performance in SKLAD on the 15/11/2018. The first project is called ‘the city composing’ or ‘the PLOVDIV sound’. This project gives the chance to everybody to be a music composer for one day involving non-musicians in the musical process creation. The aim of this project is to make people active creators, not just mere receivers, and trigger interest in contemporary music. The process was to spread blank sheets, some color pencils and an explanation sheet in selected parts of the town, leave them there for 5 days and then collect them. The places where I left the sheets where: the Arts Academy of Plovdiv, the Monkey Café, the Eddie café, the Art News café and Yoga Plovdiv. The results were quite disappointing, as the only place where the people reacted to the project was the Art News Café. The main reason of that is probably the limited time frame, as for such a project a minimum of three weeks is required. On the other hand, it is for sure something that should concerned us as artists, that there was zero response from the Arts Academy. On the same time, I recorded sounds from different places in the city like the ADATA Island, Nebet Tepe, Maritsa River, Alyosaha, Park of the Tsar Simeon and the singing fountains, the railway station as well as crowded public places in Kapana. The different sounds, which I edited in various computer software (Max MSP, Ableton Live), where used as a soundscape in the concert and will also be used in my final proposal for Plovdiv2019. The concert was a one-hour performance, where I collaborated with the local artist Veso Petrov. We performed the musical ‘scores’/ pictures through a continuous sound drone, made from the recordings.
