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ANTHROPOPHAGE
Released 7 May 2021
«Anthropophage» is debut concept album by Yona Tukuser, featuring trembling electronic sound improvisations created in Rome from 2016 to 2021.
«In the album «Anthropophage» I tell the story of a silently boy, a boy who, after seeing his mother to eat his brother's body, ran out on the road to scream the horror of what he saw to people, but instead of words, he began to make only scraping sounds. The boy became dumb from the experience.
Today I am trying to extract a muffled sound from the past, as I experience the tragedy of mute boy, his silent and closed world, his horror, his lack of love. On behalf of the children who were eaten, died and survived from hunger, I want to tell the world their story through the vibrating pain of my sound compositions».
«While working on the album «Anthropophage», I read an autobiographical book by Klaus Kenneth «Born to hate Reborn for love». The writer who nearly died of hunger as a child, says that «stronger than hunger is lack of love». These are the most powerful words I have ever heard. I know from the famine survivors in Ukraine (where I was born) that famine is the worst death, but I could not imagine that a lack of love could be worse than starvation».
The cover of the album is a creative interpretation of the historical image; a child, frightened by the madness of adults, quench his hunger with his boots. Each composition on the album tells the true story: «A Woman Ate Her Daughter From The Grave», «Stole The Bride From The Wedding And Ate Her», «A Woman Slaughtered Her Son And Sold Him».
«Experimental music that breaking all criteria», - a curators of the Submit Hub describe the album «Anthropophage», - «atmospheric sound, mysterious vibe»; «The magical flow of the compositions, captivating soundscape created an alluring, but somewhat hunting feel to that entire progression, offering a light, but eerie atmosphere to its performance».
«The power of music base on motifs of Yona’s painting project for the cannibalism is in denial as an alternative aesthetic concept of the modernity». - Ionko Ivan, curator of the project «Anthropophage».
«Anthropophage» is a tragic story about the inevitable loss of man's battle with nature». Improvising with sounds, Yona extracts the tune of hope and despair from the abyss of dumb nature, where life and death merge into one and become indistinguishable.
«Anthropophage» is a symbol of interaction».
The sounds in the album «Anthropophage» are a palette from which Yona creates a terrifying musical painting of the sunset‘s suffocating atmosphere at sunrise.
/Anthropophage, this is a man who eats human flesh, a cannibal. To anthropophage, we humans are nothing but meat. We are prey, not enemies. Also, the word Anthropophage is a metaphor for the state as an apparatus for violence, oppression, trampling on the dignity of the human person. /
Yona Tukuser scraped the ashes of the cremated hopes and dreams of modernity and, mixing with paint and sound, created «Anthropophage».
The concept album «Anthropophage» -
is a Black Diamond for the best hunters of taste.
This is an experience only for the most daring. A journey in which you can meet yourself if you find the Black Diamond in the dark.
PREHISTORY
Cannibalism allows us to see a concept of life history that corresponds to the universal insensitivity of nature to the lives of individuals, that nature which, by constantly destroying ephemeral forms, draws life from death.
Documentary video footage, 2018 ©Yona Tukuser
«In May 2018, I took a trip to Bulgarian villages in Ukraine, filming conversations with 86 people who shared shocking stories about the famine they experienced and cases of anthropophagy in Bessarabia in 1946-1947».
Documentary video footage, 2018 ©Yona Tukuser
In November 2020, Institute for Historical Studies - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, was published scientific article «Projection of a Metamodern Method for the Study of the Famine in Bessarabia in 1946-1947 Reflected in Historical Painting» by Yona Tukuser in magazine «Istoricheski Pregled».
«In the article I present materials I have collected on cannibalism in Bessarabia, Ukraine, in order to prove that cannibalism was widespread during the famine after the end of World War II».
In February 2011, Foundation for Image Synthesis presented paintings by Yona Tukuser in the exhibition «Hunger» in Center for Culture and Debate «Red House», in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In project the «Anthropophage» Yona Tukuser raises social theme associated with the problems of hunger in the modern world, presenting a series of thematic paintings inspired by historical events in Bessarabia during the famine in Ukraine, where was born artist.
«Anthropophage», oil on canvas / 100x130cm, 2010, Yona Tukuser
Hunger suppresses the unconditional reflex in people who have reached anthropophagy. This characterizes the historical periods of social transformations, wars, epidemics.
The bark of social forms of behavior is destroyed, the fire of biological impulses erupts and instead of a cultural socius, you see a wild animal, completely unlike a cultural being.
IS THIS THE END?
No.
This is the beginning
The sounds compositions in the album «Anthropophage» are based on real stories collected by me about hunger and cannibalism from the area where I was born.
The name of each sound composition is identical with the name of a painting in which I paint a plot of a real story about cannibalism.
The sound compositions from the album «Anthropophage» will be synchronized with a documentary video «Anthropophage», presenting conversations with people who tell stories about the famine and cannibalism in Bessarabia in 1946-1947.
The intertwining of sound, painting and video creates a syncretic monumental composition «Anthropophage».
