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FrançaisURBOGLYPHS: MULTIPLYING THE CITY – “INITIATING CONVERSATIONS” AT VITIĆ’S SKYSCRAPER
Written by Boris on 2024-04-18
Urboglyphs [Lat. urbs = city] + [Gr. glyphē = engraving] are symbolic and spatial accumulations of signs and meanings created by the multilayered inscription of various events in the same place of occurrence. Through them, we read the urban collective memory of the city, thereby reconstructing the intangible cultural and political heritage of urban spaces.
We invite you to continue the “Urboglyphs” program on Sunday, April 28th, on the roof of Vitić’s skyscraper in Laginjina, where we will hold a lecture followed by a conversation with citizens accompanied by the soundtrack from the film “Vitić pleše” by composer and intermedia artist Stanko Juzbašić. Our special guests will lead the conversation, discussing the meaning of coexistence, responsibility, and loneliness. The event starts at 10:00 AM.
The number of seats is limited and admission is free. However, we ask that you bring in return a childhood picture or an object with which you share a history or find interesting for our conversation. Register at: https://forms.gle/aBk9rGX5pcpJP8Cu6
Stanko Juzbašić is an independent artist, musician, composer, intermedia artist, and software writer. After completing his studies in electrical engineering and Portuguese language and literature, he dedicated himself to authorial work in sound, music, theater, and music informatics. He has composed original music for over 60 musical stage productions in Croatia and around the world. He has received numerous theater and music awards. In 1996-1997, he was a Fulbright scholar at the Columbia University Music Department in New York. From 1995 to 2002, he was a collaborator-pedagogue at the Moving Academy for Performing Arts in Berlin. In the academic year 2005-2006, he taught the course “Sound Design” at the Academy of Arts in Osijek. He is the initiator and author of the Croatian Music Terminology and lecturer of the independent course “Music of the Mind,” which he conducts in collaboration with Bacači sjenki and with co-financing from the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.
After this Sunday, we have another conversation during the workweek. On Tuesday, April 30th, from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM, we will meet in the courtyard of the house at Martićeva 44, where Tatjana Tihomirović, Leo Vukelić, and Boris Bakal will lead us through a discussion on the meaning of coexistence, responsibility, and loneliness.
Leo Vukelić holds a Master of Arts. After elementary and high school, he studied electrical engineering and, in 1996, enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He graduated in free arts in 2004 and that same year, with two colleagues, founded the artistic organization Tigar Teatar, and began intensely working in theater for children and youth. To date, he has held 25 solo and over 50 group exhibitions in the country and abroad. From the beginning of his theatrical career to the present, he has realized over 100 professional projects on almost all Croatian stages as a scenographer, costume designer, performer, text author, director, lighting designer, and visual identity designer. He has received numerous professional awards. Since 2023, he has been employed as an assistant professor of arts at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek.
Boris Bakal is a director, actor, and intermedia artist who has been creating theater and film projects, performances, and multimedia installations for over forty years, presented or produced by festivals and events in more than twenty countries worldwide. As a guest lecturer, he has presented at numerous universities, symposiums, conferences, and panels. Since 2001, he has led Shadow Casters, an international artistic platform that has received numerous awards and recognitions in Croatia and abroad.
Before that, you can find us on Monday, April 29th, in the open office near the Croatian National Bank, where we will spend part of our working hours. Through open offices, we test the entire “Urboglyphs” program directly with citizens, organize the project, and collect stories that we will incorporate into thematic walks. These offices thus become “mobile interpretative centers” of the neighborhood and meeting places. The aim of setting up open offices is to raise awareness of neighborhood everyday life as resourceful and useful for thinking about the well-being of the local community. We will do this by collecting urboglyphs, symbolic and spatial accumulations, signs, and meanings, created by inscribing events into the very place. Thus, by collecting statements and testimonies from random and intentional passersby, we jointly explore the character of the city. The uniqueness of this “Open Office” is the recording of so-called Lumière minutes of the given space.
“Urboglyphs – Multiplying the City” is a multi-month urban program by Shadow Casters, continuing our twenty-two-year practice of dealing with the city, its material and immaterial heritage, reading spaces, and educating citizens about the resourcefulness of shared spaces. It is a continuation of our contemplation of the city, architecture, and art in the atmosphere of contemporary cultures “by other means” and an invitation to cooperation, interaction, agreement, and consent to an “open field of differences” as a necessary prerequisite for active artistic creation. At the core of such thinking is the idea of necessary interdisciplinary and multimedia practice and co-participation with (potential) users-co-authors of that practice.
Project support: City of Zagreb – Office for Culture and Civil Society
Support for Bacači sjenki: National Foundation for Civil Society Development, Kultura Nova Foundation, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Agency for Electronic Media, and others.
