Preludes for the Post-Normal, Magda Drozd
22m 21s, sound
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“The post-normal is for me the time after the so-called normal we have known.
A time of fragmentation, of new rules, of settling in, disturbances and contrasts: acceleration and slowing down, distance and proximity, digitality and craft, the inside and outside, anxiety and calmness. It is a time of new beginnings and suspense. A time that we have to discover and gives us the freedom to rethink and to experiment and that is at the same time scary, anxiety-driven and unbalanced.”
Magda Drozd

The artist and composer Magda Drozdpresents the sound work Preludes for the Post-Normal (2021), a composition made up of 13 different preludes, short pieces known mostly from classical music that become heresound images. Better recognized as intros in the contemporary pop musical contest, preludes do not have a rigid compositional structure and can take a wide array of forms. The work, whose sounds were entirely recorded and composed during this time by the artist, evokes different directions and emotional states. It suggests to us the opportunity of imagining multiple possible beginnings which, in turn, allow us to foresee or invent as many imaginable futures: suspended projections that open gazes in the evolution of time. Preludes for the Post-Normal is indeed a journey through sound visions that invite to enter in different spaces and get projections that call to an elsewhere and suddenly vanish. The work, presented for the first time in OTO SOUND MUSEUM, is made up of different atmospheres and rhythms through organic and metallic sounds, noises collected in nature orthe private space, violins, percussion, voices, birds. These preludes can reflect the time we are currently in and, through their suspense character and playing with the concept of ‘post-normality’, leave space for speculation and invention.


Magda Drozd

(b. 1987, Poland) lives and works in Zurich. Her practice explores acoustic ecologies and a non-rational perception of the world through sound. Songs for Plants, her debut album, was released in 2019 by Präsens Editionen and has reached a broad international audience of experimental music experts and fans. On her second album called "18 Floors" which she published in 2021, Drozd focused on the building she called home for several years. Within Switzerland her installations and performances were shown at Shedhalle Zürich, Helmhaus, Lokal 14, Fabriktheater Rote Fabrik, sic! Raum für Kunst, Haus Konstruktiv, Südpol and Nationalpark Zernez among others. Internationally she presented her work in art spaces in Detroit, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, Trivero, and Trento. Since 2021 Drozd collaborates as a composer with Torino-based artist Laura Pugno for her video works and installations. Magda Drozd has earned her BA in Dramaturgy and MA in Fine Arts at Zurich University of the Arts where she has been a research fellow since 2019 and teaching sound and listening as a form of knowledge creation.

21 June – 20 July 2021

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