The Garden of Sound is a collection of sound and audio-visual installations that connect radiophonic art and botany, exploring the relationships between humans, plants, animals, and machines.

Using primarily the language of experimental sound and leaving verbal and rational elements aside, the works delve into spaces beyond human hearing, hidden or overlooked. Living organisms and inanimate nature are explored within the inaudible spectrum, with connections formed at the level of intuition, emotion, and imagination. In an attempt to momentarily shift humans from their dominant position in the Anthropocene and place them in an equal stance with the living world surrounding them, technology is used to bring them into a sonic symbiosis with other species.

I Think I'm Jupiter

The audiovisual installation I Think I'm Jupiter by Marija Stojnić was created specifically for the 15th Beldocs International Film Festival in 2021, in collaboration with the Center for the Promotion of Science. This work explores the human-plant interaction, examining how our bodies and senses adapt to isolation within the spatial constraints of urban environments. Using multi-sensorial technology as a mediator and placing plants as the sole other living organisms in the space, it re-discovers physicality, presence, contact and sensuality through micro-movement and micro-sound. The piece draws inspiration from the ASMR video trend and plant-pet stories shared with the author during the isolation of the COVID pandemic.

Directed by, concept: Marija Stojnić
Producer: Miljana Martinović
DoP: Dušan Grubin
Editor: Ivan Vasić
Color grading: Dušan Grubin
Plant sounds design: Aleksandra Mitrović
Used track: Vrt by Svetlana Maraš
Sound editing: Marija Stojnić
Sound mix & foley: Bojan Palikuća
Model: Aleksandra Mitrović
Costume: Tijana Milutinović
Makeup: Tijana Ljubić

Biographies:

Marija Stojnić (Valjevo, 1986) directs films that blend documentary and experimental artistic forms. Her award-winning film Speak So I Can See You has screened at MoMA, and festivals in Amsterdam, Thessaloniki, Melbourne, and Munich. Marija earned her master’s degree from The New School in 2014. She is a co-founder of the vocal group Rosa.

Jakov Munižaba (Belgrade, 1982) has designed sound for over one hundred films, many of which have been screened at festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Sundance. He has directed radio dramas, composed film music, and is teaching sound as s professor in Belgrade and Podgorica. He earned his PhD at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, the University of Arts in Belgrade, in 2019. He is a regular collaborator of Radio Belgrade's Electronic Studio.

Creative-technical support: Karkatag
Acknowledgments: Jeveremovac Botanical Garden