Marko Batista: OPTOLYTH

At the heart of the performance Optolyth, with which Batista remains true to the established line of his creative inquiry, there are high-frequency generators, whose operation releases a lot of energy or heat and thus affects the material characteristics of purposefully used materials. Such operation of high-frequency generators facilitates the emergence of a specific architectonics of signals, whose mapping, manipulation and distribution within the system result in the audio and the visual fields of the spectator, confronted with real-time projections, accompanied by synchronous soundscapes. The repetitive, mutating structures of audio and video elements produce unpredictable effects at various psychosensorial levels of the spectator’s perception.
An important element, which is increasingly present in the artist’s work, is the relation to the concrete spatial architecture as regards its acoustic attributes. The well-considered spatial set-up of sound bodies, which uses the existing elements of the industrial legacy of the Old Power Station, points out, yet again, the author’s exploration of the changing perception of sound and its hapticity within a specific spatial configuration. Therefore, the experiential and aesthetic potentials of Optolyth are not dependent solely upon the used technology and the audio-visual stimuli produced by it; rather, they are also conditioned by the very architecture, in which the performative act is being carried out, and by the very position of the spectator within the spatial conglomerate. Matjaž Brulc

Author: Marko Batista
Technical support: Primož Juvan, Urška Batista, Brane Ždralo, Miljenko Kadič, Matija Praznik, Dejan Kastelic
Production: Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana