Struggling to find my way back…but also never quite leaving.
The Game takes its name from the attempts made by asylum-seekers to reach the EU via the overland border between Bosnia and Croatia. Located on the so-called Western Balkan migrant route—and only 10 kilometres from the border—Bihać has for the last 15 years been used as a point from which to attempt ‘the game’. Visible from the nearby monument on Garavice Hill is the local cemetery which contains a small, unkempt plot of graves of many who did not succeed—either drowning in the Una river after jumping off the trainline which snakes along beside it, encountering bears or unexploded land mines from the 90’s wars, or as a result of injuries sustained by the brutal push-backs administered by the Croatian border police. The monument, symbolising twelve weeping mothers looking out over their fallen children from the National War of Liberation (WWII), now takes on new meaning.
Additionally, the title references the local football stadium which at the height of the migrant crisis was used as a makeshift refuge for asylum-seekers. In contrast to the rising authoritarianism in Europe at present which manifests as increasingly harsh immigration policies, Bihać was the first region liberated from Nazi-allied forces in WWII. It was here that the founding principles of Yugoslavia, including its anti-colonial engagement with the global south were first fleshed out, guided by the Partisan call-to-arms ‘Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu’ (Death to fascism, freedom to the people).
The composition unfolds over nine thematic chapters (five of which feature in this excerpt), each focusing on one part of the constellational matrix of sites related to Garavice. The composition progresses through abandoned spaces used as makeshift asylum-seeker accommodation, game day at the local football stadium, the fields around Garavice, a border crossing, and archives related to the site, concluding at the point at which a group of asylum-seekers prepare to make a covert, nighttime border crossing. Interludes highlight the geological settings of these locations, while at other points field notes appear in the form of voice over, ruminating on the listening process.
The Game was first exhibited as a 60-minute, 22-channel sound installation incorporating geological and found objects activated by exciters and reclaimed speaker components, in Naarm/Melbourne in February 2026.
- D A Calf is a Naarm/Melbourne-based sound and installation artist and researcher, working predominantly with sound, text and photography to explore the remnants and dormant possibilities of failed modernisms. Through field work and archival research his practice contends with archives—impossible, hidden, contested, and otherwise—of place.
Curated by Sally Ann McIntyre for Radio One 91fm, Ōtepoti Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand, May 2026.
In the hidden valley, one can dissolve into a dynamic emptiness
The Wind of Heaven
Hidden Valley seems to be far removed from our worlds. There, a musical encounter with Flies, Cicadas, Wombat Poo, and a little Waterfall unfolds. These characters become my Musickin—through the musicking—as the wind of heaven blows through the pipes of every critter.
Later in my studio: A contemplation re-enfolds on the affordances of identity and identitylessness.
The originary recording was made 2020, in the Budawang Mountains, southwest of Nowra, on the east-coast of Australia. This Country is the lead author of this work, and respects are paid to the Yuin people, who have been singing up these Mountains everywhen. My studio is on Gadigal Country.
- Jim Denley, December 2025
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Born in the Illawarra, Dharawal Country south of Sydney in 1957, Jim Denley has been active with experimental and improvised musicking since the 1970s.
He has performed in Australia, Europe, Japan and the US with artists such as Chris Abrahams, Clare Cooper, Keith Rowe, Joel Stern, Robbie Avenaim, Jon Rose, John Butcher, Otomo Yoshihide, Fred Frith, Phil Niblock, Trey Spruance, Clayton Thomas, Tess de Quincy, Axel Dörner, Adam Sussman, Ami Yoshida, Oren Ambarchi, Tony Buck, Ikue Mori, Sachiko M, Malcolm Goldstein, Michael Sheridan and Annette Krebs.
He is interested in what his music instinct might learn from language. From 1989 to 2009 he worked with the text/music group Machine for Making Sense, (Amanda Stewart, Stevie Wishart, Rik Rue and Chris Mann). Jim co-formed 180º with Amanda Stewart and Nick Ashwood in 2018 to continue the pursuit of text/music intra-activity. He’s been involved with the radically inclusive Splinter Orchestra since 2001.
He often records around the coves and beaches of Sydney Harbour, where for thousands of years the Dharug people would have played ngaramang (music).
His radio work Collaborations, produced by ABC Radio National won the 1989 Prix Italia for radio production.
Bloomsbury will be publishing his PhD research as the book, Towards ecological musicking: As Weather Improvisation.