Tree

The Tree is a sound work that artificially amplifies a recording of birdsong through speakers located in an actual tree. It was first presented outside the SKC Cultural Centre in Belgrade, previously a social club for the secret police, which Abramović and her fellow students repurposed after calling for official acknowledgment of their artistic activities, demanding that: "…cultural and creative facilities are open to all". Although Josip ‘Tito’ Broz, leader of the Yugoslav Communists, responded and relented to the student protests of 1968, the Tree may also be seen as a critical reflection on his hectoring public pronouncements, with the recording’s insistent, distorted repetition perhaps showing Abramović’s disillusionment with her parents’ close ties with the government. This new configuration of the work, its second iteration since 1972, utilises hidden speakers near a tree, rather than the more literal first iteration of a tape recorder balanced in the branches.