Jug Marković

NULA–Jug Marković in conversation with Alexey Munipov

 

 

You draw a lot on childhood memory in this piece. What was it like to grow up in Belgrade in the 1990s?

 

My childhood memories are mostly fun. I was a kid–not old enough to understand the gravity of what was happening–so it felt like an adventure. Standing in a 50-metre line with my grandmother to buy sugar. Going shopping in almost empty stores with maybe ten products in total. Exchanging currency on the street. Buying petrol with my father.

 

You assume that’s just what normal life is, because you don’t know anything else. Banknotes with endless zeros? Sure–that’s what money looks like. We sold furniture from our apartment, but it didn’t feel like a tragedy. »Mom says if we sell grandma’s antique candelabra, we’ll have money for six months of living costs.« Great! We lived in this strange poverty bubble, but it wasn’t depressing.

 

And you didn’t experience that as poverty, exactly?

 

Not really. You’re like: okay. There are so many things you get used to so quickly, because you don’t know anything better.

 

Anything that came from outside Serbia–cheese, salami–was considered a luxury. And you think: well, that’s how life works.

 

I would be lying if I said it was traumatizing. I loved it. In 1999, Belgrade and Serbia were bombed for three months–I was twelve–and that was different. I did understand that something potentially dangerous was happening. But even that didn’t feel unbearably stressful.

 

There were so many demonstrations–huge demonstrations–in Belgrade throughout the decade, and my parents took me to them. So even this mass-violence thing wasn’t as traumatic for me in ’99 either.

 

Because you grow tough in the 90s. Nothing surprises you.

 

It’s striking that you lean into the lighter, almost ironic side of those memories–rather than anything that feels overtly traumatic. Was that a deliberate choice?

 

First of all, I wanted to talk about my own experiences. And secondly, probably some other people–more sensitive people–would have had problems with this. I’m not so sensitive, I have to say. I don’t take these economic crashes and so on that hard. I kind of stay stable all the time.

 

The consequences of the war were different in each of our countries. In some places bombs fell and buildings were destroyed. Elsewhere, the main damage was economic, families broke apart, and life collapsed in other ways. I lived in a country that was mostly devastated by the financial consequences of war–not by violence per se. Inflation was the most visible thing. So I decided to talk about that–about what I felt where I was.

 

I made a list of objects, images, phrases, situations, smells and colours that I associate with growing up in Belgrade at that time–and I used that as compositional material. For example, »devize«–the dealers who exchanged dinars for German Marks on the street would constantly repeat this word to attract customers. You would hear this buzzing, »zzz« everywhere–devize, devize, vzz, vzzz. Or the smell of petrol, which I loved–and still love. I still spend time at gas stations because it is the smell of my childhood.

 

I also used daily inflation rates from December 1993 and the denominations of dinar banknotes as material for the piece. »Nula« means »zero«–all those endless zeros on the banknotes.

 

When you started composing this piece, what was your first impulse?

 

I didn’t want to deal directly with the theme of war. I didn’t want to be pathetic. So I decided to use my childhood memories of living in Belgrade in the 1990s.

 

The first thing that comes to mind when you think of war is violence–not currency exchange. We’ve seen countless films where soldiers bring violence. But nobody shows the everyday life of ordinary people: people who refused to go to war, who opposed it, who were just trying to live. There’s no sensation in that, so it stays hidden. And I deliberately chose to work with those themes.

 

I wanted to do something that hasn’t already been done by hundreds of colleagues.

 

But mostly not by composers, right? This isn’t something contemporary music reflects on that often.

 

It’s been touched on in rock and pop, not in contemporary music. But in film it’s really over the top. Maybe, in Western Europe people are not aware, but these themes have been used numerous times through different types of arts. Movies, books, theater plays… I’ve seen so many films and photos that depict war, violence, slaughtering, genocide at the Balkans. Nothing shocks me anymore, or explains new things. We have nothing to add here. I don’t think anything is unsaid. It is just boring.

 

Besides, music is such an inherently abstract thing. What does all of this have to do with music? It has no connection–except the connection I decide to make.

 

I rarely generate verbal concepts–mystical or political. I think musically. For me, everything starts with sound. The connection between music and the world is completely arbitrary. That’s why this project was unusual: it forced me to begin from a concept.

 

Do you feel that your childhood memories and the experience of the 90s in the Balkans shaped your identity as an artist–even if you didn’t experience the war yourself?

 

It definitely influenced me as a human being. Which means of course it also influenced my art–I just can’t fully articulate how yet.

 

Our generation is not used to comfort. The idea that everything is readily available, functional, served to you on a plate… we never had that expectation. I think it made me less spoiled. Compared to my friends from Western Europe, I simply don’t feel fragile. I won’t break because conditions aren’t perfect.

 

Probably my love for street culture and clubbing comes from that period, because my entire 1990s childhood was spent on the streets–and later, between 2002–2010, Belgrade had a truly wild clubbing scene. The best clubs, bars, all in abandoned spaces. People had been trained in the 90s to make things happen without resources. Nobody said: ‘Oh, we can’t make this exhibition happen.’ Instead it was: ‘We’ll paint the walls ourselves, we’ll find a way.’

 

Is there such a thing as a post-Yugoslav sound–something shared, even after all the divisions?

 

We were always a little bit strange in the field of contemporary music. Balkan contemporary music was never unified the way it often is in the larger Western European countries. In Germany, everything is »post-Lachenmann«. Ex-YU countries do not have that. It’s much more dispersed. You have neoclassical composers, you have people working with folklore–that’s clear. But then you also have many people doing completely different things that don’t fit into any single aesthetic. That’s why it’s hard to draw parallels between the new voices.

 

As for me–my background is rave, techno, and black metal. And I know a couple of composers in Zagreb or Belgrade with techno or metal backgrounds as well. Maybe the influence of electronic scenes is something we have in common.

 

 

 

How did it feel when all the composers involved in Balkan Affairs were in the same room together? Was there any tension or unease?

 

Not in the slightest. We’re like brothers and sisters. There is no animosity. Maybe among non-artistic people–at a football game, for example–it could be weird. But among composers? No way.

 

Yes, we are opening black boxes from the past, yes, it’s a sensitive topic, and yes, we have different experiences. But my family–and everyone I know–were so strongly against the war and did so much to actively stop it… I never had any kind of identity crisis or collective guilt. And I felt the same in this group. Petra speaks about violence and rape, yes–and there are many sensitive themes–but I never felt that anything was directed toward me or a neighboring country. I felt good the entire time. It’s a lovely group.

 

In your opinion–how much time needs to pass after a war before artists from the region can start working with it? Is 25 years a realistic minimum–as in the case of ‘Balkan Affairs’?

 

Probably less. In 2009–2010 people from Serbia were already going to the seaside in Croatia. Not everybody–just the brave ones–but still. But I cannot imagine an artistic project with Croats and Serbs in 1995. It wouldn’t work–unless the people involved already had deep personal ties.

There are many psychological obstacles–even if everyone has good intentions. It also depends on your social circle and your age. I don’t think you always need that much time. But of course, for a war veteran it would still be difficult even after ten years. The emotions are too strong to fade quickly.

 

Did you discuss this piece with your parents–and how did they react?

 

My father wrote two novels set in the 1990s, and he and my sister made documentaries. He is very involved in this topic–he was an activist in the 90s. My mother is a lawyer–she is surrounded by all this shit constantly. So they were very supportive. I asked them all sorts of practical questions–like »what exactly did we sell in ’95?« They were happy to talk. I’m not sure everyone is like that. When a narrative controls your life for so long, you just want to forget. Letting go is the healthiest option–and understandable.

 

Margareta Ferek-Petrić, artistic director of Music Biennale Zagreb, said she sees this project as a tool for reconciliation. Do you feel the same?

 

I’m very skeptical about that. I don’t think it will have any healing value in that sense. I reconciled–honestly–long ago. Same with my parents. Same with many people I know.

 

I think the real importance of this project is not in »healing wounds«, but in rebuilding artistic connections between neighboring countries. During the 1990s we were isolated in our own states. That isolation still continues. There are strong connections between German-speaking countries, but almost none between Belgrade and Zagreb–even though there is no bad blood anymore.

We are neighbors, we speak the same language–and yet the amount of shared projects is pathetically small. We need collaborators and partners. We need concerts in each other’s countries, workshops, ensembles, publishing houses, institutions.

 

We lost this in the 1990s–it died out in ’91–’92–and never came back. Nobody worked on rebuilding it. Every European scene has a geographical logic–but not the Balkans. We are missing this.