EN TEN TINI, video installation with sound, 2018, 2020

(video, projector, two audio speakers)

Adult men sing the text and melody of a children’s nursery rhyme with resolute seriousness.

Duration: 90-second sequence repeated in a loop

Video image dimensions: 300 x 169 cm; camera: Milivoj Kuhar – Mimi; image and sound editing: Kristina Horvat Blažinović; composition arrangement: Branimir Magdalenić; performers: members of the “Josip Vrhovski” choir from Nedelišće: Ivan Čordašev, Ivan Lesjak, Jurica Srbiš, Marinko Šego and Zlatko Gorski; conductor: Branimir Magdalenić.

  

    

Five singers stand and face the camera in front of them. They sing the children’s nursery rhyme “En ten tini” a cappella three times consecutively, in three different rounds. Each round is performed at three varying tempos – faster, slower, and a medium pace.

In the video “En ten tini,” the change is evident through the sound component when the same composition is performed in three different ways, with varying tempos. The sung text (the counter “En ten tini”) belongs to the playing field and functions as a tool in the process of selecting or eliminating players. There is no criterion for this selection – the choice is entirely by chance, that is, the person on whom the counter ends is selected. Each new count (of the counter) results in a change in the selection. The installation can be experienced metaphorically in various ways, considering everyday life or socio-political situations where the phenomenon of “luck” or “coincidence” is at play, which are certainly debatable categories.

“In a fixed frame, five men from a choir are arranged so that the image seems on the brink of bursting with tension. The two men on each side are partially cut off; the one on the left is notably younger than the three at the centre, while the one on the right is considerably older. The central man, taller than the others (the frame cuts off his forehead at the edge), has an unusually broad chest which, in a white shirt, might resemble an inflating parachute. He is the only one smiling kindly as he sings the nursery rhyme’s text with the others, varying in tempo.” (Damir Radić)