ON Rizom | Sounding Spomenik

While the striking still enigmatic visuality of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's abstract brutalist monuments has been well-documented in recent years, hardly we know anything about their sounding aspects. Most of these spomeniks (original form in plural spomenici, meaning memorials in Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian languages, derived from the root spomen- that means memory) have hollow parts that serve as resonant spaces. The most characteristic materials these historical artefacts were made of are poured concrete and rebar, or steel frame with metallic covering plates. Materials that certainly influence or have audible modifying features to sounds. Curiously, so far, nobody has examined, documented thoroughly and published these enduring landscape objects as acoustic spaces. Besides the spomeniks' direct sonic aspects, little we know about their surrounding acoustic environments. Until now.