SONNTAG, 11. November 2001, 23:00. - 24:00, Ö1

KUNSTRADIO - RADIOKUNST



Soundcard II



MY ROOM

von / by Milos Tomic

Curated by Aleksandar Vasiljevic



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Dauer: 50'38"
A CASSETTE OF THIS PROGRAM CAN BE ORDERED FROM THE "ORF TONBANDDIENST"
[ english ]

Milos Tomic befindet sich auf einer ständigen Suche nach dem Vergessenen und vermeindlich Unscheinbaren, das an den Rändern des städtischen Lebens in Serbien zu finden ist, Audio- und Video-Schnapschüsse vom alltäglichen Leben der Menschen, ihren Ängsten und Sorgen und ihren Freuden. Dabei interessiert sich Tomic für die Emotionen, die mit Hilfe von Sprache transportiert werden, nicht für den konkreten sprachlichen Inhalt des Gesagten.

Milos Tomic verwendet für seine Audio-Aufnahmen ein Mono-Mikrophon. Ganz bewusst versucht er nicht die Illusion einer sterilen Studio-Aufnahme herzustellen, wenn er Leute interviewt. Die Aufnahmen klingen bisweilen übersteuert, in jedem Fall roh und unmittelbar, sie sind eben direkt aus dem Leben gegriffen. In diesem Punkt, so Aleksandar Vasiljevic, würde ihn die Arbeit von Milos Tomic an die nostalgische Stimmung erinnern, die man gewöhnlich mit den frühen Tagen des Radios assoziiert. Auch die Audioqualität von Internetradio lässt an die frühen Tage des Radios denken, "und es schaut so aus, als würde das Einführen einer neuen Technologie in die Gesellschaft, welche in einem frühen Entwicklungsstadium viel an Audio-Qualität verloren gehen lässt, immer wieder aufs Neue die Tatsache offenbaren, dass Realität letztendlich nicht künstlich erzeugt, nicht gefaked, werden kann (bzw. soll). Natürlich ist dies offensichtlich, jedoch oft verschleiert durch jene Entwicklungen, die wir als weitere Schritte hin zu einer perfekten Wiedergabe bezeichnen. Wofür ist diese gar so gute Wiedergabe aber gut, wo wir doch alle wissen, dass da eben keine kleinen Menschen sind in unserem Radio."

Statement von Milos Tomic

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Milos Tomic is in constant search of forgotten or undiscovered things and people on the margins of city and suburban life. He is fascinated with common people and their common destinies, homeless people, children, people at market places... He constantly mingles with them and makes audio/video recordings. Although their destinies are sometimes quite interesting, he never tells the stories of their lives - he just takes audio/video snapshots of their voices and faces and puts them into his collages afterwards, making his picture of what Serbia sounds like. Sometimes, these people can't stop laughing, other times they just make noises or babble.

Therefore, don't be afraid of so many spoken Serbian in this piece - the language is not really important. I speak Serbian quite well, yet I don't know what these people are up to, either. What fascinates Milos are emotions that are passed by their voices themselves, not the specific messages. And he does not try to make his audio recordings sonically pure, sometimes he lets people and children record themselves and gets dirty results which he considers as valuable as these made in studio environment. He records his works in mono, not trying to re-create any kind of "realistic" audio environment. At this point I look at his work as some kind of nostalgia for the early days of radio, when audio "fidelity" wasn't the thing one could rely on in telling a story.

Interestingly enough, it seems that audio quality/purity/fidelity of Internet Radio nowadays is quite the same as one of early radio many decades ago. And it looks like introducing new technologies, which are always notably lossy in their early stages, reveals the fact that reality doesn't have to be (and can't be) faked. This fact is always present, but is often blurred with further developments, which we call "steps towards fidelity" or so. But what is fidelity good for if we all know there's no "little people inside the radio"?

Milos Tomic doesn't try to hide any stage in audio processing: microphone, tape, A/D conversion, etc. are made quite obvious in his work, yet his general point survives all these obstacles - and this is that people have the need to laugh and speak and make sounds. And like to be listened to. If no one else would listen to them, Milos Tomic surely will. Maybe you will, too. They will be there anyway.

English Text by: Aleksandar Vasiljevic


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