Inese Verebe (She/Her)
Inese Verebe’s work is a hybrid from the world of music, art, and design. Having been challenged by formal music education in the past, one part of her Interaction Design practice is to play with core concepts of music theory and instrument learning to create tools for the audience to engage with sound. Additionally, Inese is experimenting with new media technology to find alternative ways to manipulate graphic design and illustration work. As she finds inspiration in infographics, her graphic style quite often can be described as geometric and bold in colour.
Kvartira-11 / New New
Kvartira-11 / New New (Flat-11 / New New) is a sound installation responding to the ambiguous situation in my motherland, where 50 years of Russification left Riga, capital of Latvia, with a population 50% Russophone, including myself. Living with proletarian ideology under Soviet Rule impacted how people identify and express themselves artistically, before and after the collapse of the USSR.
With the death of Joseph Stalin, restrictions in the USSR eased. That was a perfect time for Soviet people to learn how to break rules creatively. The Ministry of Culture still strongly controlled censorship in the Soviet Union, and the nation was not satisfied with the offer of cultural life under the Iron Curtain, causing the black market to become the main source for exploring Western trends. Illegal recordings would spread like a virus on DIY vinyls, cassettes, and even pirate radio stations.
As an amateur musician who collaboratively worked in Rock bands since my youth, I am interested in the concept of the DIY artist and bedroom producer. With the development of technology, recording and promoting your music is easier than ever, but the main challenge for Soviet people was limitation. By limiting sounds you can produce at the installation, creating simple and fun interactions, such as a pirate broadcast to a Soviet Radio, I am hoping that the public will reinvent themselves.
