by Artistic Research PhD Candidates of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Supervisor: Gerhild Steinbuch
“Voice-shifting as a Method: Eco-Gods in Orthodox Chants” proposes an alternate reading of the Serbian Orthodox chant. The project strategically observes chants (one of many tools in building a nation) as a form of Serbian state nationalism. Examining Serbian Orthodox chants as the only official state performance ritual that re-emerged after the fall of the Former Yugoslavia, the project specifically examines their historical contexts during the Byzantine era and their pagan roots. The research takes the elements of Orthodox chants (e.g. form, narrative, melody, rhythm, and performance) out of their customary thematic/narrative patristic binary uses and recontextualizes these elements with an eye toward possible future eco-narratives. It changes the narrative and its discourse. This includes the content of the chants, its audience, and its musical composition. The following questions drive this project: How are current Serbian political myths shaped to facilitate national “unity”? How can they be deconstructed by being placed in opposition to a group of insects? What can we learn from insects to facilitate voice-shifting? And how might performing chants not to God (a singular, male, anthropomorphic figure) but with and to insects — disrupt previous institutional alignments and make room for new identifications? The proposed project will examine chants not only as sound morphologies but also as cultural (socio-political) phenomena. By detaching them from the experience of the patristic past and the inherited narratives that church rituals enclose, my project proposes to create new narratives that relate to the present time and consider possible futures that take current anthropogenic ecological events into account. Using the narrative strategy of speculative fabulation, the project will weave complex myths into transnational experiences, capturing and complicating the idea of cultural heritage. An important intervention I hope to make is to reverse the logistics of the hymn/chant making, taking sound and melody as a vehicle for the text and not vice versa.
1) Patristics (or patrology) is a theological science that presents the history and content of the teachings of the church fathers. The patristic tradition has the character of a dogmatic synthesis on which the apostles, apologists, martyrs, confessors, ecclesiastical writers, and fathers of the Church worked.
2) The sound in chant-making comes last, meaning it is in the service of the text and not vice versa.
Sanja Anđelković (1991) is an audio-visual and textual artist based between Novi Sad, Serbia and Vienna, Austria. She is interested in parallels and examines how the idea of “home” changes in different historical, geographical, social, and environmental contexts. She draws references from different current phenomena and works with archives from various state institutions to create multilayered works. She holds an MFA in New Media Art from the Academy of Fine Arts Novi Sad and is a PhD candidate at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her professional artistic endeavours include art residencies with the British Council/BIOS/ATOLYE (UK, GR, TUR), Risk Change (Budapest, Hungary, 2019); collaborations with the Filmuni Konrad Wolf Babelsberg, Potsdam; mentions at Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria, 2021); awards from the Prince Claus Fund (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2021), the 59th October Salon (Belgrade Biennial, Serbia, 2022), Secondary Archive Award (Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation, Poland, 2022) and Dimitrije Bašićević Mangelos Award (YVAA, Belgrade, Serbia, 2023). Currently, she is cooperating with anthropologist Hsiu-ju Stacy Lo on a speculative CGI feature film.