8pm - Thursday, December 1st, 2005 - 74 Samuil str. close to Piroutska

“What is the city telling”

A project by: Association for City Research by the Means of Art “X-TENDO”
In collaboration with Radio France International, Bulgaria.

In the project the X-tendo group observes, explores and research the “talking city” – the natural and unnatural city environment. The project includes field recordings, radio emissions and performances in the city environment. With this act X-tendo would like to bring a different sense and meaning to ‘talking’ as a natural human expression.
Project participants include locals and foreigners, who work in a city. Emphasis is put on expression and spontaneity rather than the literal words. The group has entered into a search for the characteristics and uniqueness which distinguish not only the people in a particular city but also the whole nation. Through these explorations, X-tendo seeks one parallel picture of the “talking European city”.
The initial realization is a series of radio emissions including recordings of the sound of the city. Without interviewing and disturbing the people, the artists predict what could be interesting to hear from the city as they choose the places where to record - the project provokes sensitivity to the dynamics of the city environment.
The main condition for all participants in the project is to deliver the recorded conversations unchanged.
The Bulgarian team has made two emissions. One is called “The Talking City” and presents the sound of Sofia like we heard it. The other is “WE” and presents the group members in the city. These radio emissions are used as sound surroundings for the groups performances in city environment which were presented on the 16th and 17th of June, 2005 in the square in front of Bulbank (one of the entrances of the metro station “Serdika”) in Sofia.

For more information: www.talkingwalk.cult.bg

Project leader: Elena Koleva-Ivanova; coordinator: Tsvetelina Gospodinova.
Research team: three persons from Association “X-TENDO” – Elena Koleva-Ivanova, Lilia Parvanova, Tsvetelina Gospodinova; two guests of Sofia – Azben Shehi – Benny (Macedonia) and Spiros Xenos (Greece); participants from European city (Amsterdam, Belgrade, Hueska, Parish and Potsdam).
Team for realization of radio emissions: technical expert and consultant – Konstantin Petrov (Media Art Center “InterSpace”); Lilia Parvanova, Azben Shehi – Benny (Macedonia) and Spiros Xenos (Greece); participants from European city (Amsterdam, Belgrade, Berlin, Hueska, Parish and Potsdam).
Team for realization of performances in city environment: director-organizer – Elena Koleva-Ivanova, design of space and costumes - Victor Ivanov, performers Tzvetelina Gospodinova, Lilia Parvanova and Spiros Xenos (Greece).

Images from X-tendo perfomance in a Sofia underground walkway

X-tendo showed videos of their public performances focusing on "Outside". This public performance, as well as their other linked public performance "Inside" present the artists in a quasi domestic scene making abstract movements inspired by sound pieces recorded in public space. They described viewer reaction to their perfomances as varying largely depending on the particularities of each performance and also largely on the physical climate at the time of the performances. During the day time, viewers tended to pass by making obvious attempts ot disregard the performers but in the eveningthere was active curiosity.
X-tendo is an active group perfroming often in public space and often using technology and electricity for their perfomances. They gave us with some insight on what it takes to achieve the oficial permissions to perform in public space and to gain access to public resources and also commented on how to maintain a "spontaneous" and "active" mood for their performances following such lenghty beaureaucratic procedures.
In attendence were Elena, Tsveti and Spiros from the X-tendo group.

—Kyd Campbell