Vedran Ružić - Music Beyond Zen (2023)

Vedran Ružić is a visual artist and jazz musician who performs on double bass and bass guitar. He often discusses current world issues, but also smaller or local issues that touch him personally and intimately. He regularly approaches his work with multimedia tools, and so it is with the concert film-installation program Music Beyond Zen, which is also the final act of his project, which has so far included the filming of the short film 6 meters. Like the mentioned film, the program that will take place as part of the MBZ at the Močvara Club will focus on local environmental tragedies of much greater proportions than it seems at first glance. This time it is about the demolition of family homes and the destruction of the environment for the implementation of a large infrastructure project that includes the construction of a new highway and the second tube of the Učka tunnel. The disaster of the demolition of the family home is joined by growing uncertainty due to not knowing when the demolition and relocation will take place. For the Ružić musical family, whose home will also collapse, this tragedy is also an opportunity to warn the wider public about events in smaller towns and communities within Croatia, which are often not recognized enough in public discourse. In addition, Ružić's home is also the studio called Highway, where the albums of his brother Zvjezdan and many other recognized jazz musicians were created, so the ecological issue becomes an important cultural issue at the same time.

The film 6 meters, which lasts as long as the section from Matulje to the Učke tunnel and back, will on this occasion be followed by a live performance based on improvisation and interaction with the audience. The program consists of 4 movements in which a drummer and a percussionist recreate the noise of traffic, and the Ružić brothers use their instruments to tell the story of coexistence along the highway. The intermezzo with the suggestive name "BAD DEED AS DISEASE", in which each letter of the name indicates the musical tone itself, marks the intersection between two lanes of the highway - the stable one and the one under construction. Ružić himself describes this music as music of instability with elements of chance, complementary to the everyday situation and feelings experienced by the residents of the affected area. The interactivity of the performance will be based on reminiscences and critical observation of local history. The local history of the author's birthplace told within the framework of the author's knowledge, memories and preoccupations, i.e. one human life, will therefore be tried to be conveyed to the participants in the audience by activating and connecting their different senses. By examining ecological and cultural issues, the project will also approach the fundamental preoccupation of the current edition of the Biennale.