Simina Oprescu
electroacoustic composer & sound artist
sonosphist, noetist
LUDUS
2020
Commissioned work by
MOTA Museum in Ljubljana,
exhibited at Equrna Galerija inside SONICA festival ‘Paradise Haunted Garden’.and exhibited at Mestna Galerija in Nova Gorica inside PixxelPoint Festival.
"LUDUS" is an audiovisual experiment that explores the use of games as a medium for investigating how form can influence sound and initiate rhythm. Within the game, the rules play a crucial role in shaping the rhythm, thereby modulating the form—the invisible shape of sound. The secrecy inherent in play introduces an aleatoric, unpredictable movement of sound in space. Paradoxically, while the rules demand order and structure, the beauty of the game lies precisely in these contradictions. If the game were entirely predictable, there would be no challenge or reward in winning. The rules delineate the form or territory, while the element of secrecy provides content and substance.
In any game, there is a duality—a relationship between the visible and the invisible.
As Johan Huizinga notes in Homo Ludens: "The exceptional and special position of play is most tellingly illustrated by the fact that it loves to surround itself with an air of secrecy. Even in early childhood, the charm of play is enhanced by making a 'secret' out of it. This is for us, not for the 'others.' What the 'others' do 'outside' is of no concern to us at the moment. Inside the circle of the game, the laws and customs of ordinary life no longer count. We are different and do things differently."
Huizinga also points out that archaic man understood music as a sacred force capable of evoking emotions and viewed it as a game. It was only much later that music was appreciated as an essential part of life and an expression of life—in other words, as art in the modern sense.
