Damir Očko's Poetic-Sonic Trilogy at Palais de Tokyo

Damir Očko's video trilogy, shown at Palais de Tokyo in Paris alongside drawings, poems, and collages, transforms the space into a musical score. Očko draws inspiration from composers Luigi Nono, Morton Feldman, György Ligeti, Helmut Lachenmann, John Cage, Edgar Varèse, and post-Romantics Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler, particularly their unfinished late works. His film 'We saw nothing but the blue of sky' alternates black-and-white seaside scenes with color interludes of fluorescent lights and smoke, accompanied by his own poem and atmospheric music. Očko treats music as an 'organ' equal to image, using musical structure to guide cinematic flow. In 'The Moon shall never take my voice', he worked with a deaf performer to translate texts about silence by Mahler, Cage, and Neil Armstrong into sign language, transferring voice from lungs to hands. His collages, such as 'The Body Score' at Galerie Yvon Lambert and the 'On Ulterior Scale' series, incorporate fragments from Feldman, Lachenmann, Nono, and René Daumal's 'Mount Analogue', creating polygraphic journeys where language disintegrates into inaudible music. Očko's work was also shown at FIAC on the monographic stand of Tiziana Di Caro and at Galerie Yvon Lambert.