ANU CATO
Aura Lazura (they/them) is a queer transdisciplinary artist with focus on techno-paganism and post-cyber feminism, True Sound, living performances, installations, sculptures and analog and digital works, as well as social sculptures – to name just a few of their current projects. They were also co-producer of Rhizom festival, and project founder at Organtempel Collective. They founded the social sculpture M.E.T.A house in the center of Zürich which brings over 100 musicians and artists working together in the same building on 1500m2, including the Queer Off Space “Toxi”. As growing up in the city, nature is a key for a new vision about spirituality, so there they are also involved in a foundation about art and ritual in the Rigi mountains (Kultur am Berg). Also Aura is well-known as one of the leading specialists and high priestex in the psychedelic renaissance movement. Lazura is in charge of organising the official Birthday Event of the LSD molecule in the form of a social sculpture in Switzerland. Lazura is on the board of trustees of the Gaia Media Foundation, a swiss foundation which until his death Albert Hofmann was on the board of trustees too. From living for three months in the Helmhaus Museum in Zurich during a long-term live performance about transformation, to living with indigenous tribes in the desert in Mexico and in the Amazonas in Colombia, to building an artist community based on tribal structures in an empty 73,000 m2 concrete factory in their native central Switzerland, it’s needless to say that Aura is widely involved in a multitude of arts and activities, always with the same idea: build bridges, RAISE AWARENESS and let’s plant trees! – queering the system. Their sound sessions are guided by intuition, offering experimental, dream-like journeys through metaphysical spaces. Live Aura plays and produces under her alter ego Anu Cato, a wild hybrid between conceptronica, hyper pop, and deconstructed club music that can range over a wide spectrum of electronic sounds, including hypnotic ritual trap, industrial rhythms, techno elements, psychedelic acid, as well as field recording drones that turn into experimental ambient. As a sound alchemist, she uses electro-acoustic instruments such as the theremin, a self-invented electronic drone gong, synthesizer, and analog narrative patterns and sequencing techniques with their voice. They modulate field recordings that they collect. Their music is intertwined with Celtic/Pagan shamanic practices. Anu Cato takes a step into a non-binary music industry with their gender-fluid and genre-bending alter ego. Anu Cato guides you through a unique trip into the metaphysical space of frequency. This journey can take you from pulsating acid techno to old school trance, through mystical underground breakbeats, cosmic industrial wave and broken rhythmic psychedelia. Anu Cato creates a hypnotic field of contemporary and classic club electronics and mixes them with hyper-futuristic bangers. Their sets can be described as an acid trip – ranging from high energy moments to more challenging and shadowy moments that such a journey can take you through. Anu Cato’s sets transform the space into a unique Technopagan ritual, with the audience guided by Anu Cato’s alchemical audio intuition. Combining an eclectic variety of genres, Anu Cato includes a variation of evolving breaks and distortion, experimental and trap moments, always challenging the audience with the unexpected. Join this ritualistic initiation into the expansion of consciousness. The post-cyber-feminist sound artist and DJ Anu Cato will release their first solo EP produced in Berlin this year.
ABOLISH & DEFUND
2020
22:26
film/sound
“Abolish & Defund” by Anu Cato for Digital Arts Biennale Budapest: Queering Democracy. Credits: Music and Art Direction: Anu Cato; Performers: Anu Cato & Irma Hirsl; Director, Cinematography, and Editing: Vanessa Blaettler; B Camera and Lighting: Tobias Wanner; Song: Abolish & Defund, written and produced by Anu Cato, courtesy of the artist
