SHAPE x XLR8R present
KӢR live 360* video with Incredible Bob:
“Bescenje”
22 November at 19:00 CEST, via XLR8R
We’re happy to announce an exclusive live stream of “Bescenje”, a comission by SONICA Festival for SHAPE x XLR8R collaboration on Sunday, 22 November at 19:00. The piece teleports us to the atrium between the Palace of Albania and the Cultural Center of Belgrade and is to be experienced with headphones for an immersive experience.
“Bescenje” – a comission for Sonica Festival, presented in this live piece is done originally for quadraphonic setup, so the logical choice was to use the 360* video technology to show this spatial aspect of the piece. For the easier presenting over youtube and other networks it is rendered as binaural, so it would be recommended for everyone to enjoy it with headphones. The location where we filmed is the atrium between the Palace of Albania and the Cultural Center of Belgrade, and you can feel that this place is almost like a brutalist archaeological site, and the composition is somehow depicting this modern decay.
In KӢR‘s words:
“Everything about this location literally exudes the disintegration of the last era, whether the decay of the Palace of Albania in a more plastic sense or the unfortunate (in)action of the KCB and the politicization of their leadership in the past, which is the case with all cultural institutions in the country, while only handful of employees by superhuman efforts are trying to maintain some reputation of these institutions. The scenario has already been seen, these buildings are being brought into a state of systematic and decades-long negligence where cultural monuments and symbols of a past time (Beogradjanka and now Sava Centar) are sold for nothing at rigged tenders to pro-regime buddies. There is a word in Serbian that is describing when something is sold (usually under the pressure) for almost embarrassing price – bescenje, and you can literary translate it as priceless but in a negative context, the symbolic antonym. And I would like to name this piece by it “Bescenje” and to dedicate it to the above-mentioned monuments and cultural workers, but also to farmers who have to sell everything they create for almost nothing i.e. price-less in order that handful of monopolists and oligarchs can buy our architectural and cultural symbols for their greed-motivated businesses. Unfortunately, the circle is closed, but we will break it, either with a word or a shovel, but rather with the latter!”
The video was created by the Shape alumni Incredible Bob.
KӢR is the solo production epithet of Bane Jovančević, resident live artist and program manager of Belgrade’s hallowed halls of techno, Drug§tore. Over the past few years he performed at festivals such as Exit, Flow, Outernational Days, 4GB, Artmospheric, Mad in Belgrade, Zdravo Mladi and was guest at numerous clubs throughout Europe. Bane draws influences from techno to new wave, incorporating power electronics, obscure ambient, folk music, twisted echoes found lost deep in wormholes. It’s visceral music, embracing drone, repetition, rippling soundscapes and obscure sonic horizons. Shaman music, drum led hypnosis, a deep tribal mix from the other world coming to take you home.
