12 Jul 2012

Damir Očko: On Ulterior Scale, MMC LUKA, Pula, Croatia

DAMIR OČKO: On Ulterior Scale
Curated by: Branka Benčić

Damir Očko's exhibition On Ulterior Scale includes a series of interconnected works developing around the film The Moon shall never take my voice (2010). Along with cinematographic works, Damir Očko produces a series of works on paper, various visual, graphic material, collages, sketches, drawings, artists' books, including a typographic score of 'optophonetic' characteristics. His works closely communicate with the practices of concrete and visual poetry, an artistic form and kind of visual expression coming to life on the margins of literature, visual arts and graphic design. Their graphic elements become a space to be explored, a means of expression that is both autonomous and complementary, and that can complete the understanding and effect of the work and widen the space of cinematographic expression as a complex audiovisual orchestration. The interest for music is one of Očko's main occupations. I've always been interested in how narrative is conveyed by music – says Očko. In his film works, music is the center around which the narratives of the work are constructed. Special attention is given to sound design which is part of the work's architecture, as if it were creating its space and volume and participating in the production of meaning. The Moon shall never take my Voice (Three songs for a muted voice and various sounds) is structured in three parts, as 3 songs, episodes having a simple performative character. The protagonist emerges from the darkness of the elementary scenography of a bare black scene and comes into the spotlight dressed in black and communicating in sign language. The specific choreography of her wavy movements is underlined by the sound component of the work leaving a deep impression on the observer. We cannot shed the impression of insecurity in what we see and hear, of the interweaving, almost organic unity of image and sound, where at times it seems that the movements are following the music while in the next moment it seems that the music was composed to follow the movement. The meaning is revealed through the interaction of movement, sound and light, and the film takes us into a magical space of fiction and illusion completely absorbing the audience.

Branka Benčić