back in Zagreb

Posted October 9, 2018

In 2018, Ispod Fontana, Zagreb

I am back in Zagreb, resident on the ground floor at the Croatian Composers Society. Today I meet Vanessa, Valentina, Kristina, Rebecca and Monica. They’re all training at the city’s Beauty school and having heard about the Sonic Bike opera for next year’s Biennale have offered to come and contribute some real Zagreb experience.

We map everyone’s homes onto the bike score I’d made in April. They all live well out of town in the places where they were born. City centre living is impossible for normal people they say. I ask them about their mums and grannys. They all come from Zagreb too, except Vanessa’s whose from Kosovo. I try to talk to them about the 90’s war and whether they think independence has made a difference but they’re too young of course and vague about what their mums think.

We talk about sound and story, about anecdote communicating experience and how to record someone relaxed. About how real and more communicative that is. About being face to face. They use the word real a lot. I show them how to record using handheld portable devices and about headphones and listening. Haha. Listening.

I play them some sonic bike films. Yes, they are totally weird but they like it they say. They leave grinning with the recorders, set to record their mums or something for tomorrow’s session. I wish I spoke Croatian.