Alterra

ALTERRA was formed at the end of the nineties. By combining various genres and approaches (music, audiovisual art, TV media and theatre), the group’s main concept is to surpass usual frames of musical expression. Symbolically, it is a criticism of clichés, both musical and conceptual. After releasing the first demo recordings on vinyl for Get Happy Records from Frankfurt in 1999, the newly established Buba label put out the first full-length cd called »Synopticon« on September 15, 2008. In the past Alterra’s members were involved in various distinguished Ljubljana based groups such as Miladojka Youneed, Lolita and several hardcore bands. Their diversity is the key to expression. From the very beginning Alterra’s main focus was on the importance of democratization of society and individual’s choice.Alterra’s “Synopticon” reflects on hypnotism and self-illusiveness of the postmodern society driven by media’s force. “Synopticon” consists of music, visualization of songs and the connecting internet site. The musical part of the project speaks by itself and is not necessarily integrated with the visual part. Lyrics are minimized to the word code open to various interpretations.Video material is selected from documentary clips out of public domain sources for two reasons. The first one indicates constant manipulation of historical sources by subjective abstraction, the second one stresses the importance of free access to information. The internet site offers additional information about the project, it presents Alterra’s ideas which gave fruition to musical part, as well as video clips of each song. The entire project was produced in Alterra’s home studio. “Synopticon” graphics were designed by the renowned Slovenian artist Alen Ožbolt. ___________________________________________________________S kupina ALTERRA deluje na podrocju avtorske glasbe, avdiovizualne umetnosti, TV medijev in gledalisca.Clani so v drugi polovici 80-ih ter v zacetku 90-ih let delovali v glasbenih skupinah, kot so Miladojka Youneed, Lolita, ter v raznih hardcorovskih bendih. Ze takrat so opozarjali na nujnost demokratizacije druzbe in pravico do svobodne zivljenjske izbire.V projektu “Synopticon” zasedba Alterra reflektira in kriticno odseva hipnoticnost in samoiluzivnost postmoderne medijske druzbe. “Synopticon” sestavljajo glasba (posnetki, izdani na cedeju), video upodobitve avdio posnetkov in povezovalna internetna stran (www.alterra.si).Glasbeni del projekta deluje samostojno in ni nujno integriran z vizualnim. Tekstualni del je radikalno minimaliziran na besedno kodo, ki nakazuje vec poti k razumevanju pomena in tudi smisla izrecenega. Poslusalcu se odkriva pot izza pomena besede, preskok preko besedne zveze v njeno ozadje, v nedorecenost njenega pomena in/ali smisla ter v sirino emotivnosti zvoka in glasbe.Slikovna plat “Synopticona” skusa s pomocjo (de)montaze arhivskih dokumentarnih in igranih posnetkov predstaviti zgodovinske prednastavitve vzorcev delovanja sodobne druzbe. Manipulacija s povezovanjem izvorno nepovezanih posnetkov prikaze varljivost ter navidezno resnicnost elektronskih medijev, medtem ko se z nacinom montaze ustvarja podton in resnicni kriticni motiv projekta. Video posnetki so ustvarjeni na podlagi virov v javni lasti (public domain). Projekcije bodo prikazane na izbranih javnih mestih.Spletna stran nudi dodatne informacije o projektu. Predstavljena so stalisca zasedbe, razmisljanja, ki so porodila zvocne kompozicije, ter odlomki avdiovizualnih posnetkov.Celoten projekt “Synopticon” je bil narejen v studiu Alterre, produkcija pa izpeljana izkljucno v okviru angazmaja clanov skupine.Oblikovanje ovitka plosce: Alen Ozbolt.