Kruno Jošt

The research-art project “Concerto Quieto,” named after the Italian name for the Mirna River in Istria, is one of those increasingly present contemporary artistic practices that call for a transdisciplinary approach to the relationship between humans and the natural environment, where natural sciences are at a standstill, opening up new worlds and possibilities. Kruno Jošt, a multimedia artist who has been applying such a practice for years, deals with the interrelationships of science, art, and sustainable development on his permaculture estate near Lovinac in Lika.

One such approach is the form of a scientific laboratory through which Kruno Jošt explores how remediation of the river is created through the medium of sound, i.e., how microbes (non-humans) can help in the decomposition of the river’s toxic sediment without intrusive impact on the environment.

He applies a similar approach to the micro-location of the Mirna River’s flow and estuary. Its area abounds with rich flora and fauna and is an important location for the migration, overwintering, and nesting of water habitat birds. Regardless of the fact that the Mirna (still) is not a polluted river, due to erosion processes, wastewater from settlements, and artificial fertilizers, its natural biological and landscape diversity is endangered year after year.

For the needs of the exhibition in the Rigo Gallery, Kruno Jošt visits the Mirna River several times. In doing so, he collects water and sediment samples, stays alone with the river, listens to it, observes its flows, writes notes, and makes photo documentation. Jošt observes the micro-world from the collected samples of the Mirna River through a microscope. Based on the enlarged living “images” of microbes, he singles out those in which he finds abstract forms that he transfers to the medium of photography. In this way, he transforms the invisible world of microbes into visual forms that, with Jošt’s subsequent interventions, also gain a sound background – a composition for the micro-world of the Mirna River. Inspired by the findings from scientific research on sound frequencies that favor the numerical growth or reduction of individual microorganisms, Jošt creates a composition for the micro-world of the Mirna River.

Composition for River Mura offers a unique journey through a series of photographs, videos, and sound compositions linked to four distinct locations along the Mura River: Sveti Martin na Muri, Podturen, Goričan, and Legrad. This multimedia exhibition masterfully blends art and science, creating an aesthetic experience that blurs the lines between the river, the laboratory, and the gallery, inviting visitors to explore unseen ecosystems functioning in their own rhythm and balance.

Jošt’s approach is deeply rooted in transdisciplinary practices, delving into the local context down to the micro-level. His work, which includes extensive field research, laboratory analysis, and digital processing, is not only artistically significant but also serves as valuable documentation, particularly relevant in our times of climate change and ecological crises. This art actively observes, maps, and becomes a space for change.

Supported by MURAI center for culture and education and Bioinstitut d.o.o. for expert and technical assistance, the project highlights the crucial dialogue between science and art as a shared language for analyzing reality and creating new artistic expressions. Kruno Jošt, an artist focused on ecological contextuality, permaculture, and sustainability, has studied at prestigious institutions and exhibits internationally, developing artistic and educational programs that explore the interrelationships of science, art, and sustainable development.

During an artist-in-residency stay at Sardegna Teatro in Paulilatino, Sardinia, Italy, from May 6th to 17th, 2025, research was conducted to engage with the themes of insularity, islander identities, and island socio-political realities through a “more-than-human” lens.

Research was conducted at multiple locations on the coast and inland, seeking water and land connections and borders rich in life and events. Water samples were collected for subsequent microscopic imaging and the production of high-quality photography and video.

Some of the particularities found on the island included seaweed, commonly called “sea potato” – a seaweed resembling a ball of wool or pet hair, ranging in size from a bird’s egg to a large potato.

At the beach, a 3-meter-high seaweed “mountain” was decomposing, creating a rich environment for microbial life.

A livestock watering place full of algae, the Roman Baths of Fordongianus, and Salina Manna (the salt lakes) were all explored, and water with sediment was sampled. One channel video was created, and live music was performed at the Sardegna Teatro residency at the end of the stay.

This program is carried out through ISLAND CONNECT, a collaborative program between seven performing arts organizations, working with residencies located on (or associated with) European islands of different countries.

“Natural Intelligence” pays tribute to Ivan Ladislav Galeta, renewed Croatian video and conceptual artist. Performance shows a very simple act of mowing with hand scythe, in the spiral form from the centre towards the outer edge and after finishing mowing returning to the centre of the spiral from where mowing started. This act evokes tradition, work, agriculture, the relationship between man and nature in past times, though the very name of the performance has additional suggestions. “Natural intelligence” is the antithesis of today’s much hyped “artificial intelligence”. By a simple action, which I learned from my grandfather who was a farmer I want to say that nature has an intelligence that should be given attention and respect.

Symbol of spiral has a reference in many artists who use it in their work, perhaps most prominent being “Spiral Jetty” by Robert Smithson. I also want to remember anecdote from Galeta’s life where he mows in the shape of a spiral on his property in  a small Croatian village (as opposed to the usual way of mowing in the shape of a rectangle) and thus attracts the curiosity of passers-by who approach him with the desire to correct his work, to which Galeta answers: “If I didn’t mow like this, they would never approach me and never talk about why I mow like this”.

Spiral is a direct trace that man leaves in his relationship with nature and symbolizes life and growth, evolution and expansion. A large number of plants and animals develop in a series of patterns that are directly related to the spiral. From the shape of DNA known as the “double helix” to seashells, cones and fingerprints, the growth of hair on the head (during the performance I stops and pas due respect to the spiral on my head).

It symbolizes development, expansion, rotation and progress – the cyclical nature of evolution where rhythms repeat. It evokes the archetypal path of growth and transformation, both physically and spiritually. The spiral is the bridge between the harmony in the cosmos and the harmony within us — the infinite resonance or life energy. Connection and union with divine and cosmic energies. Revolutions of time, stars, planets and ways of natural progress.

The performance “Natural Intelligence” was designed and performed by Kruno Jošt, produced by UKE in 2023.

Post-normal Art is a diary that draws its inspiration on the Ziauddin Sadar text “Welcome to Postnormal Times” from 2009. in the form of a blog with texts, parts of Sadar’s translated texts, photographs, sound and video shorts.

Diary is leading us deeper in understanding how to manage post normal times with art practice, what that practice should be, and how to realize it.

Photo of a found object, an oak tree leaf that has fallen on the snow. Radiated by the sun, leaf has accumulated enough energy to melt its own image in inverse, a sort of its own cast in the snow.

Photo is a part of  Minor Disturbances with participation of following artists: Rita Cachão, Henry Collins, Edith Doove, Bruno Duarte, Margarete Jahrmann, Kruno Jošt, Jason Karaindros, Robert Maddox-Harle, Ollivier Moreels & Jean-Louis Vincendeau, Sana Murrani,Guiherme Pontes, Michael Punt,Aparna Sharma and Paul Towey.

Inspired by Charles Ives vision of spatially distributed creativity in his unfinished Universe Symphony, The Faculty of Minor Disturbances (FMD) sent out an invitation to create a minor disturbance as we corralled the forces of the universe together with 2I/Borisov, an interstellar comet which visited the solar system.

Ives’s The Unanswered Question was said to be written under the influence of by the New England writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

See participating works here >>

Installation that utilizes sound, light and living plant, “Sound  Fertilizer” is presented at Cologne gallery Tiefgarage situated in multicultural Ebertplatz, between 22. and 26. July 2018.

Zucchini plant is positioned at the middle of the gallery, a light bulb above and two mobile phones with sets of frequencies placed next to the plant. Zucchini has been planted in the straw bale at Center for Creative Solution in Croatia and after few months transported with  car over the half-borders (borders running only on one side of the neighboring countries) to Cologne. Cucurbita L has no known origin, some coming from USA and some from India. Its multiculturalism resembles every large EU city with its multicultural inhabitants and especially Cologne’s Ebertplatz where it is situated. 

Light used has spectrum of 4000K that enables growth and flowering, while two recycled mobile phones (non functioning, used only as sound players) play sets of frequencies created especially for zucchini plant.

Sound Fertilizer encourages plant to grow in healthy and stable conditions, inside the gallery. Technology enabled art for the plant can also pos3e a question of its environment – anthropocentric culture that grows on both neo-liberal capitalism and/or social state of liberal humanism, while neither of options are furthering away from unbalanced relationship of people as subject and plants as object.

This installation makes plant a subject, as sound is artistically produced and intended for a plant.

3 weeks of workshops with Srishti University for Art, Design and Technology students resulted with an exhibition opened on 14.12.17.  in the complex of RMZ Ecoworld in Banglaore, India’s most rapidly growing city that has it’s devastating effect on the environment. As Bangalore is known as Silicon Valley of India, its population is growing at amazing rate. RMZ IT Park, with office spaces, health activity facilities, shopping, dining, amphitheatre and art gallery, promotes itself as “work-leisure sustainable environment where natural and architectural forms are symbiotically integrated using responsible planning and precise engineering”.

Site specific installation “Ecocentric” juxtapositions its organic aesthetics to human engineered pavilion that proudly announces its ecological concept. A small forest was created, mulched with coconut leftovers from Bangalore street vendors. After that it was inhabited with multi-plant life that was “fed” by the custom frequencies from small speakers placed in the soil.

LCD screen was informing public on ecocentric activities dating all the way back to beginning of 20th century, proposing sound as a genuine organic fertilizer for the plants.

16 Channel Fertilizer (2.0) was exhibited at Silba Art Environment festival happening during July and August 2017 at small island Silba, set just off the coast of Croatia’s town of Zadar. 16CSF is upgrade on 1.0 of the same multichannel sound installation presented earlier this year in Berlin. This time set up is at Silba’s open space gallery among sculptural work of Marija Ujević Galetović. Each channel is playing one of the researched sounds or musical scores that is said to help particular aspects or plants with its vibration. Exhibition is thus not set for humans, but for plant world.

Installation consists of small wooden resonant boxes that have transportable battery and solar panel connected to them that are powering recycled mobile phones used as sound players. each sound box was set up near its plant, growing there because it was planted or self-grown. They stay in contrast to sculptural work by their number and position, not intending to be there for human visitors, but placed around and for the plants.

“Invisible Cities” event in Gorizia, Italy hosted “16 Channels” installation, including 45m² geodesic dome made out of wooden poles and tent cover, with 16 speakers arranged in circle, lights, cushions.

Spatial sound installation using 16 channels reproducing piano composition by Kruno Jošt, overplaying randomly, creating a sound immersive experience. Installation was run on solar panel, batteries and inverter.

Pixelache Festival 2013 with its theme of Facing North Facing South profiles the work of the Bricolabs mailing list, an independent and dynamic network of people absorbed with sharing, DIY, open source software, hardware and environmental sustainability living in various localities across the world whose online and offline exchange of heterogeneous practices and ideas have driven the network since its formation in 2006.

Bricolabs’ Exhibition

Where: Suvilahti ‘Square’ (location to be confirmed), free entrance!
Opening: Thursday 16.5. at 19.00
Exhibition dates: 17.-26.5., from Wednesday to Sunday 13.00 – 18.00

Three shipping containers will host workshops and artworks made by various members of Bricolabs: A ‘brico-archive’ corner assembled by Gabriele Asbesto, including diverse documentation on processes, including “how-to’s”, video works, texts and brico-objects; A nearby graffiti wall will provide an evolving open canvas for demonstration and exchange of concepts, ideas and views; An interactive installation – Vjing Nature – created by Ivan Henriques & Kasia Molga and Erik Overmeire will invite us to address inter-connections between sensor technology, data vis and microbiology; In addition, the Sensorium project from Salvador de Bahia will be presented on video. Collaborative curation; visual design: Kruno Jost.

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De(con)struction found its way into issue number 3 of on-line magazine MAKE8ELIEVE: 3rd issues topic was OIL.

with:
Jennifer Axner, Julie Badin, Hélène Baril, Kristen Baumlier, Mehdi Benkler, Edward Burtynsky, Arnaud Cohen, Valerie Constantino, Stephanie Craig, Olivier De Sagazan, Cédric De Smedt, Jason DeMarte, Adam Dumont, Edouard Duvernay, Jane Fulton Alt, Olivier Garraud, Mihai Grecu, Henry Hargreaves, David Herbold, Ryan Hopkinson & Christopher Raeburn, Rebecca Horne, Franck Hoursiangou, Kennedy James, Harris Johnson, Kruno Jost, Sofia Karlström, Amir Hossein Keihani, Florent Konné, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Liberate Tate, Katie Loesel, Antonio Maia & Fernando Belfiore, Michael Massaia, Lauren McCleary, Elizabeth McCue, Michelle Marie Murphy, Sorin Oncu, Holly Parker, Vincent Petitpierre, Sarah Pickering, Wilson Roscoe, Evan Roth, Mary Rothlisberger, Fred Rougerune Loison, Diego Sanchez, Wolfgang Stiller, Arya Sukapura Putra, Marc Neys Swoon, Jean-Jacques Tachdjian, Carlos Vergara, Paul White, Christophe Wlaeminck, Marshall McLuhan, Slavoj Žižek, M.I.A., Roland Barthes, Yohji Yamamoto, Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing.

www.make8elieve.com

Textil{e}tronics
From textile to electronic thread, from substance to fashion item

02.03.2012. – 01.04.2012.
Galženica Gallery, Velika Gorica, Croatia
http://www.galerijagalzenica.info/node/2819 

‘Let’s now delve deep into the fluff’
Massimo Banzi, Getting Started with Arduino

‘Following the development of a simple thread into complex new media objects, the exhibition will touch upon recent developments in the areas of wearable technology and electronic sculpting through lumino light objects and the presentation of Arduino microcontrollers.

Dealing with sculptural textile (J. Štefanec) and electronic thread (A. Klančić), designed substance and new meanings of objects (P. Dona), as well as socially responsible textile art (M. M. Pungerčar), the exhibition presents an overview of contemporary new media directions and questions the meaning of the medium as such. The social and emacipatory aspects of textile arts are clear – they invoke thoughts of industrial manufacturing, DIY subculture and self-sustained systems, especially in relation to recent similar developments in the fields of open source and wearable technology (Arduino, Body Pixel Studio).

The thread as a seemingly fragile, but basically all-pervasive, almost indestructible matter, and the wire as a conductor and an arbiter of electrons are hereby linked. Juxtaposed in a way, the materials provide the cohesive narrative for the objects presented. The exhibition examines this link from the microscopic amorphous shape and suppleness of the material, all the way to the subtle robustness of the objects. Mechanic perfection, be it the human body or a machine, is not a prerogative here, since the delightful awkwardness of mechanics does not comply with the projected reality. The uncertainty of the performance which accompanies every new-media art process, is quite well suited to the fragility of the textile thread.’
Text by Deborah Hustic

Guerilla knitters: Una Bauer, Ana Dadić a.k.a. ŠtrikAna, Vana Gaćina, Ivana Ivković, Antonija Letinić, Maja Kalogera, Marijana Rimanić, Maša Žarnić.

Curator: Deborah Hustić http://www.bodypixelstudio.com/

DIY Arduino by Davor Jandrijević Emard

Curator’s assistant & organizer: Ana Kovačić
Design: Petra Zlonoga
Music: Kruno Jošt

Field recording during MMKamp '11

Multimedia cam – MMKamp was held this year in Marija Bistrica and Zabok, north Croatia. Read more about it here >>
Have a look at the photolog>> or lilsten to the audio drama recorded in a group fashion by all the participants:

Noise event SONIFICATION III hosted noise musicians from Croatia and Italy. In culture centre Kocka in Split on 14th Novembre BRAINTOURNIQUET (Venice), NARAYAN (Sisak), GENTLEJUNK (Zagreb), VIŠESLAV LABOSH (Zagreb)
KARMAKUMULATOR + POWERSET AXIOM (Split) presented their audio-visual works that was questioning what is and how can therm Sonification be represented.

BRAINTOURNIQUET, Venice. Creating noise with el. magnetic fields.

EEII’10 and MMKamp’10 reports can be found here:

MMKamp >>

EEII >>

PDES (Pure Data Exchange Summit) is yet another step into the research on collaborative environments, its stimulants, individuals and their mind-sets which forms a group work. PDES is an example of what are (generally) the themes created in collaborative process orientated work environments that are critical to art itself.

Read the full report here >>

Mario Jaksic in interactive performace suit

In gallery Scheier, Čakovec, Croatia, on 05th December 2009, EEII’09 12 hour event brought together artists from Greece, Netherlands, Italy and Croatia.

Blog entry with personal observation >>

ART01 entry describing how EEII’09 functioned >>

Wall graphite

Inspired by London collective ‘Random Artists’, over the past few years collective groups in Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and Brighton have been coming together to create a cultural, interactive, autonomous space where people are free to be, free to create, and free to express themselves. Forbiden Arts Manchester in 2009 happened in occupied primary school building that was left empty waiting for decisions by city hall and omnipotent property developers will it be brought down or repaired. Idea was to enter existing space that is not used at the moment and put it into public use for local community. Doors were open to everyone who wanted to take part in collective art event.

Noisy Toys room - colective sound/noise experiance

Wall paintings, poetry readings, video nights, fashion show, sound workshops, cabaret, installations, raveoke night, all fitted in aesthetics of local event that is characterized on MFA web page as: “An event like this doesn’t just happen but is the result of many, many people’s hard work.”

TAA Manchester big hall event

Noisy Toys collaborative event video >>

As it is, as it goes, prizes are starting to come in for the work that insisted on taking representative form from participative processes developed beforehand. Its 4th reincarnation happened in slightly different context, most notably in its new terms of negotiating project in the newly formed team. Positions that prizes involve: question of value, ownership, possible marketing strategies, group dynamics according to personal needs and acceptance of needs of others have surfaced at metalevel. CultureRobot became something that could easily be put into broad cultural concept and disseminated in the form it is trough events and festivals. Read more on Belo Horizonte and Salvador festival here >>.

Circuit bending workshops and sound performance organized during ACTFEST in Čakovec brought ZID.BUKE (NoiseWall) together once again (maybe for the last time in this decade!).

Circuit bending workshop was finalized by performance that invited audience to try all the instruments created or recreated. As it goes with invitation for participative events, ego is dispersed, fines is lost.

September started with THE LAST THEATER SHOW EVER,  I-Camp theater, Munchen. Idea and methodology was to deconstruct traditional theater trough series of collaborative works where one work was supposed to lean on another, where each participant brings an idea and connects it to someone. International crew came around and investigated for 5 days in what might be called horizontal construction decision making and constant reevaluating of the final presentation that was constructed of three distinctive pieces.

All three were on collaboration but with different input and output models: one was following movements outside of theater and by computer calculations bringing it inside trough sound and visuals done with found (theater) hardware.

Another used sound in feedback communication that deconstructed viewers position and placement in theater, being done under the stage and audience sitting space.

Third one used virtual theater through on-line software with international particiants being projected on theater walls, together with orchestrated individual who brought event there.

Experiment was worth while intentions to discover what are group dynamics when artist are put together to work on something that calls for collaboration and sharing. Not to forget to mention that putting creativity with different bacgrounds into same place can be very frustrating and cathartic at the same time.