Seismographic Sounds Visions of a New World

PRESS RELEASE 10 January 2016

CTM 2016 EXHIBITION SEISMOGRAPHIC SOUNDS VISIONS OF A NEW WORLD

CURATED BY NORIENT WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CTM, AND INCLUDING WORKS BY PEDRO REYES, TIANZHUO CHEN, RAED YASSIN, SVETLANA MARAŠ, URS HOFER, AND HANDS ON SOUND

OPENING: 29.01.2016, 19H EXHIBITION RUNS 30.01–20.03.2016, DAILY 11–20H, DURING CTM (30.1.–7.2.2016) 11–22H KUNSTRAUM KREUZBERG/BETHANIEN, MARIANNENPLATZ 2, 10997 BERLIN

The 17th edition of CTM Festival examines today’s rapidly collapsing borders and emerging new hybrid topographies through its New Geographies theme, as well as the tensions and essentialist backlashes that arise as a response to today’s increasingly hybrid world. The festival’s programme of concerts, performances, discourse, and more, is complemented by a special edition of the “Seismographic Sounds. Visions of a New World” exhibition, curated by Norient — the International Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture. For the exhibition’s presentation within CTM 2016, Norient and CTM curated additional works by Pedro Reyes, Tianzhuo Chen, and Svetlana Maraš.

“Seismographic Sounds. Visions of a New World” is a multi-authored exhibition assembling distinct music, sound art and videos created, compiled and commented by 250 artists, musicians, academics and bloggers from 50 countries. Often produced in small studios from Jakarta to La Paz, Cape Town to Helsinki, these works experiment with the possibilities of the internet age and illuminate new spaces beyond the confines of commercialism, propaganda, and bigotry. Countering pessimistic views that globalisation and digitisation have led to cultural uniformity, they foresee a changing geography of multi-layered modernities, far beyond old ideas of North versus South, West versus East.

A division of DISK / CTM – Baurhenn, Rohlf, Schuurbiers GbR • Veteranenstraße 21, 10119 Berlin, Germany Tax Number 34/496/01492 • International VAT Number DE813561158 | 1 | Bank Account: Berliner Sparkasse • BLZ: 10050000 • KTO: 636 24 508 • IBAN: De42 1005 0000 0063 6245 08 • BIC: BE LA DE BE

By diving into six topics — Money, Loneliness, War, Belonging, Exotica and Desire — visitors explore the exhibition as an audio-visual composition filled with music videos with subversive sounds and messages; experimental podcasts from local artists and journalists; a three-channel round table installation hosting controversial discussions between journalists, bloggers, artists and academics; and numerous other sound and video installations, experimental audio mixtapes and remixes. While a seismograph measures and records force and duration of earthquakes, with “Seismographic Sounds”, Norient aims to measure visions of a new world. In keeping with this mandate, all exhibition content comes from multiple perspectives of musicians, authors, journalists and photographers from all over the world. Partners for the CTM 2016 exhibition include curators Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter and Hannes Liechti, scenographers Julien McHardy, Nils Volkmann, and Carlotta Werner, media planners and acoustic scenographers Jan Paul Herzer and Max Kullmann (hands on sound), Nicolai Wienzoschek, and graphic designers Annegreth Schärli and Marius Rehmet (Vojd). Complementing the exhibition, the CTM 2016 Discourse programme of talks, panels, music diffusions, film screenings and more is curated in close collaboration with Norient. The Discourse programme will present a range of “Seismographic Sounds” contributors. Sarah Abunama-Elgadi, Meira Asher, FOKN Bois, Wendy Hsu, Adam Harper, Chris Saunders, and many more discuss ethical borders when working with local sounds, postcolonialism and new strategies of researching music today.

»Here, exhibiting the internet, succeeds surprisingly well.« Ina Plodroch, Deutschlandfunk, Corso (Germany)

»It’s a high demand, as the exhibition wants nothing less than to detect visions of a new world. However, the feat succeeded, thanks to unrestrained curiosity and a network with a programmatic name: Norient.« Kaspar Suber, Die Wochenzeitung (Switzerland)

“SEISMOGRAPHIC SOUNDS“ PUBLICATION

The exhibition’s namesake book, titled “Seismographic Sounds. Visions of a New World” (Norient Books, 504 pages) invites readers to experience and discuss the project and network from even more different angles. The second publication from Norient, edited by the exhibition’s curators Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter, and Hannes Liechti, offers a collage of articles, interviews, quotations, photographs and lyrics around international niche genres, parodies on exotica, and post-digital forms of protest. The multiple perspectives gathered within its pages hint that the mainstream hits and underground trends of the future will come from Africa, Asia and Latin America. More Information: http://book2015.norient.com

»This is a remarkable book. It is brilliantly messy, complex and compelling, just like the diversity of global musical life it celebrates and interrogates in fact.« Tony Herrington, The Wire

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NORIENT – NETWORK FOR LOCAL AND GLOBAL SOUNDS AND MEDIA CULTURE

Founded in 2002 by Thomas Burkhalter, Norient searches for new music, sounds and noises from around the planet. The Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture is based in Bern (Switzerland), and discusses current issues critically, from different perspectives, close to musicians and their networks. Through the Norient Online Magazine, the Norient Musikfilm Festival, performances, books, documentary films, traveling exhibitions and radio programs Norient hopes to orient and disorient readers, listeners and spectators and present to them strong, fragile and challenging artistic positions in today’s fast moving and globalized, digitized and urbanized world. More Information: www.norient.com

DJ Invisible, photo Chris Saunders.

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SELECTED WORKS

Pedro Reyes [MX] – “Disarm (Mechanized), 2013”

Installation comprising six mechanized instruments, recycled metal, dimensions variable. Courtesy, the artist and Lisson Gallery.

Mexican artist Pedro Reyes’s work is a socio-political critique on contemporary society and our responsibility towards it. His large-scale projects are catalysts for communal and psychological transformation, triggering group interaction and creativity. Disarm (Mechanized) relates to two of Reyes's previous projects: Palas por Pistolas (2007) in which citizens of the Mexican state of Sinaloa donated a total of 1,527 weapons through a campaign, which were then turned into 1,527 shovels to plant 1,527 trees; and Disarm (2012), in which seized and subsequently destroyed firearms were used to fabricate musical instruments. Disarm (Mechanized) 2013 comprises six mechanized musical instruments, created in collaboration with Mexico City-based media workshop COCOLAB. Fabricated from parts of revolvers, shotguns, and machine-guns, these instruments intermittently play in the exhibition space as musical automatons. A large part of today’s world politics has been hijacked by the weapons industry, fuelling conflict around the world for the sole purpose of profit. Most of the time, the blame goes to whoever pulls the trigger, while the companies that manufacture these weapons and the political states that sell them somehow manage to escape proper scrutiny. Disarm is a project that hopes to remind us that living in an environment free of weapons ought to be a human right, and that it is within our means to transform agents of death into instruments of life. If we can turn a weapon into a musical instrument, hopefully, that physical transformation could lead to a psychological and social transformation.

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Tianzhuo Chen [CN] – “19:53, 2015” and “Scapegoat 02”, 2016

“19:53” — feat Yico, Beio. Single channel HD video. “Scapegoat” — object on pillars.

A rising star in the art world, Beijing-based Tianzhuo Chen skillfully works between the artistic disciplines of installation, performance, video, drawing and photography. Chen’s first solo exhibition was presented at Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2015 and featured performances with artist and dancer Beio, who co-wrote the script for “19:53", the first of two of Chen’s work presented within “Seismographic Sounds” at CTM 2016. In this dreamy, grotesque and kitschy video work, Chen reimagines tradition by mixing ceremonies and symbols found in religion, fashion, LGBT, BDSM, voguing, rave, and other global subcultures in order to transcend body and spirit. Supported by music from Yico, the video searches for a “state of madness” and celebrates a new mythology by carefully choreographing burlesque creatures obsessed with hedonism. With “Scapegoat 02”, Chen translates musical rituals into art by arranging costumes, masks and objects from his performance within CTM Festival’s nighttime music programme, as holy relics. What once was part of a crazy and loud performance, in the end remains a silent sculpture charged with the aura of a mythical past.

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Raed Yassin [LB] – “The Stinky Singer / The Sultan of Tarab”, 2015

Taxidermy animal, neon, sound. Courtesy of the artist and Kalfayan Galleries.

Raed Yassin’s “The Stinky Singer / The Sultan of Tarab” is an allegorical work about the life of pop stars who’ve briefly had their moment in the limelight, but have long since seen their star fade and disappear. Once free spirits, these now lone singers never managed to figure out the ropes of staying successful in the music industry. The mummified skunk or “Stinky Singer” represents one such star. The animal sings his unique story through an Arabic "Mawwal" (lamentation) song, remembering his former shining self as his coarse exhausted voice reflects his current miserable status. "Stinky Singer" is the first of a series that explores the variations of these faded pop star characters. Beirut-based Raed Yassin's work often originates from an examination of his personal narratives and their workings within a collective history, through the lens of consumer culture and mass production. He has exhibited and performed his work in numerous museums, festivals and venues across Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Japan. Yassin is one of the organizers of IRTIJAL Festival, has released several music albums including as one half of Praed, and founded the production company Annihaya in 2009.

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Svetlana Maraš [RS] – “Matter of Fact”, 2016

Stereo sound, video, 3D printed controller/ interface. Svetlana Maraš (music, concept design), Valentina Brković (graphic design), Deana Petrović (motion graphics), Polyhedra Fab Lab (interface).

Serbian composer and sound artist Svetlana Maraš works at the intersection of experimental music, sound art and new media. “Matter of Fact” is an eclectic cut-up composition where Maraš uses her interest in the relationship between text and music as a starting point. Rather than attempting to set words to music, she uses text as the structural element, or building blocks, devoid of its original context or meaning. In an immersive jukebox or dismantled karaoke space she plays short clips and pieces created from materials provided by Norient (artist interviews, performances) as well as original material by the artist.

By inserting a keyword into the installation, visitors trigger associated clips that re-contextualise the word in relation to the kaleidoscope of artists, perspectives, cultures and styles represented within the “Seismographic Sounds” exhibition. Detached from their original source, these words and clips become meaningless or take on new meanings when combined with other clips to produce new dialogue, turning into general statements that belong to “no one”. Just like a horoscope prediction, they can point us to a new realisation … or (humorously) miss the point entirely.

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Urs Hofer [CH] – “Stereo Types”, 2015

Installation, 2015.

Banknotes and supermarkets, weapons, masks, naked bodies, archival footage, and lonely people — these are some of the recurring topics and visual motifs spanning some 2,000 music and video clips from 70 countries Norient received from its network. 26 of them are the heart of the “Seismographic Sounds” exhibition. Swiss media artist Urs Hofer took on the rest, creating “Stereo Types”. In his installation, Hofer uses an algorithm to detect thematic and formal relations between the clips, generating an endlessly moving and changing audiovisual experience. The machine becomes the curator, and, by stepping onto a highlighted spot to change the track, the audience becomes the selector. Urs Hofer holds a M.A. in media-, film- and computer science from the University of Zurich. His works center on collaborations with graphic designers or artists, focusing on combining computer technologies with other arts, design or literature. He has received numerous grants and held several residencies, and his installations and performances have been shown at Ars Electronica, the Bauhaus Dessau, ZKM and various theatres in Germany and Switzerland.

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hands on sound & Norient [DE/CH] – “Parabols”, 2015

Installation, 2015

Satellite dishes sit everywhere, on the balconies and rooftops of people who invite the whole world into their homes. They supply entertainment, and both new and old information. These dishes clutter many cityscapes, including the area around Kottbusser Tor in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Many immigrants have called this area home since the 1970s. The buildings they inhabit seem to have appeared all at once, all within one architectural style, and are covered by the space-like antennas shooting out of almost every balcony. What do these city dwellers feel and hear? Do they take notice of the bustling Kottbusser Tor square below, the here and now? Or are they busy listening to and imagining other cities, other countries? The satellite dish does not just receive, it can also send-out information. With “Parabols”, the Berlin- based duo hands on sound use a series of antennas to gather and broadcast art, sound clips, and field recordings found within the Norient Network’s vast archive, into the exhibition space. Founded in 2009 in Berlin by architect Max Kullmann and sound designer Jan Paul Herzer, hands on sound develops projects for curators, scenographers, and architects, while also creating their own artistic works. Sound is their tool, and architecture their medium, to program acoustic spaces, and also to leave voids in their design.

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CTM 2016 – NEW GEOGRAPHIES FESTIVAL FOR ADVENTUROUS MUSIC & ART 29 JANUARY – 7 FEBRUARY 2016, BERLIN

From 29 January – 7 February 2016, CTM 2016 returns to its previously established constellation of a range of Berlin’s most exciting nightlife and cultural venues, including HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berghain, Yaam, and Astra. The 17th edition’s New Geographies theme examines today’s rapidly collapsing borders and emerging new hybrid topographies, aiming to provide the tools needed to approach the complexities of a polycentric, polychromatic, and increasingly hybrid (music) world with greater openness. Special projects and commissions, as well as artists and sound cultures emanating from less familiar countries and localities and often operating on the fringes of the electronic circuit are featured in greater numbers than ever before.

With:

PAULINE OLIVEROS W IONE FLOATING POINTS LIVE RABIH BEAINI HATSUNE MIKU KEIJI HAINO SENYAWA LE1F OG MACO JLIN GESLOTEN CIRKEL ESPLENDOR GEOMETRICO LAUREL HALO RØDHÅD 2B2 ATEQ MUMDANCE VISIONIST STEPHEN O’MALLEY FIS & ROB THORNE PEDER MANNERFELT VINCENT MOON RABIT KASSEM MOSSE LENA WILLIKENS NIDIA MINAJ MAURICE LOUCA HONEY DIJON NIGHT LOVELL POLE & MFO JERUSALEM IN MY HEART MIKAEL SEIFU GROUP A AÏSHA DEVI FEAT. TIANZHOU CHEN & BEIO ABDEL KARIM SHAAR AND BAND ANA HOMLER & STEVEN WARWICK: BREADWOMAN TARA TRANSITORY AKA ONE MAN NATION ROBERT HENKE & CHRISTOPHER BAUDER: DEEP WEB N.A.A.F.I. FEAT PAUL MARMOTA & ZUTZUT IANCU DUMITRESCU & ANA-MARIA AVRAM and many more ...

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SPECIAL PROJECTS AT CTM 2016

»DEEP WEB« KINETIC AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATION AND PERFORMANCE BY CHRISTOPHER BAUDER AND ROBERT HENKE. PRESENTED WITHIN CTM FESTIVAL 2016 IN COLLABORATION WITH KRAFTWERK BERLIN Installation: 2 – 7 February 2016, daily 15–21h Performance: 7 February 2016, 19h Deep Web is a monumental immersive audiovisual art installation and live performance created by light artist Christopher Bauder and composer and musician Robert Henke. Sublimating the spectacular industrial architecture of the Kraftwerk Berlin, Deep Web plunges the audience into a ballet of iridescent kinetic light and surround sound music. The work will be presented daily within CTM 2016 Festival in installation form, culminating with a performance on Sunday 7 February.

»RITUALS« FILM INSTALLATION BY VINCENT MOON Opening: 30.1.2016, 19h Runs: 31.1.–7.2., daily 15–22h

Commissioned by CTM, Vincent Moon's multi-screen film installation "Rituals" will enlace themes of timeworn trance rituals and the sacred in modern life into a synthesis of new findings.

Vincent Moon is a wanderer, independent filmmaker and sound researcher devoted to the exploration of global music-making practices, from experiments in electronic music to local sacred rituals involving or centred on sound. Sufism in Chechnya or Ethiopia, Ayahuasca rituals in Peru, trance in Brazil, Jathilan in Indonesia and Len Dong in Vietnam — the broadness of Moon’s work has relied for decades on his own travels and experiences rather than on academics, and allows for thematic connections across eras and worlds.

»STILL BE HERE« A PERFORMANCE / INSTALLATION WITH HATSUNE MIKU. INITIATED BY MARI MATSUTOYA IN COLLABORATION WITH LAUREL HALO, DARREN JOHNSTON, LATURBO AVEDON, & MARTIN SULZER 5 & 6 February 2016, 21h30 At Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt Commissioned by CTM Festival and transmediale for their joint 2016 editions, Still Be Here is a unique collaborative performance that draws us into the multiplying realities of a 21st Century pop star, and traces the dynamics at play between fans, corporations and social desires. Since her 2007 launch in Japan, Hatsune Miku has become the ultimate pop star, developed from a vocal synthesizer product into a globally adored and collaboratively constructed cyber celebrity with a growing user community, countless stadium performances as a virtual 3D projection and more than 100 000 songs released worldwide. Still Be Here explores Hatsune Miku as the crystallisation of collective desires, embodied in the form of a teal-haired virtual idol, forever 16.

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»AN EVENING WITH ABDEL KARIM SHAAR & BAND« A SPECIAL VARIETE CONCERT 1 February 2016, 20h at Heimathafen Neukölln On invitation by guest curator Rabih Beaini, legendary Lebanese singer Abdel Karim Shaar appears in an especially memorable evening. Like the masterful Umm Kulthum, a legendary Egyptian songwriter, singer, and actress, Shaar is closely linked to the traditional concept of tarab, which describes music’s evocation of emotional catharsis. On February 1st, the antique ballroom Heimathafen Neukölln will host a special variété concert in the style of one of Shaar’s classic performances at Beirut’s Metro Al- Madina theatre. The singer will be accompanied by his band of oud, qanon, violin and riq players.

Full programme at www.ctm-festival.de

TICKETS, FESTIVAL PASSES, AND PRESS ACCREDITATION The access to the CTM 2016 exhibition is free. Festival passes and tickets to other festival events are available via the festival’s ticketshop. Press accreditation is open until 7 January 2016 via the festival’s press office.

PRESS CONTACT FESTIVAL CONTACT

Guido Möbius CTM Festival › [email protected] Veteranenstr 21, 10119 Berlin › +49 (0) 30 29002161 › [email protected] › +49 (0)30 4404 1852

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SEISMOGRAPHIC SOUNDS – PARTNERS & FUNDERS

A project by DISK/CTM | Norient

Funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes

Supported by Embassy of Mexico

In co-operation with Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien | DAAD – German Academic Exchange Service Deutschlandradio Kultur / Hörspiel – Klangkunst Humboldt University’s Chair of Trans-cultural Musicology

Seismographic Sounds Pre-Production Partners Pro Helvetia | Migros Kulturprozent | Schweizer Nationalfonds | Ernst Göhner Stiftung Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation | srks/fsrc Stiftung für Radio und Kultur Schweiz Swisslos Kultur Kanton Bern | Kultur Stadt Bern | Burgergemeinde Bern Jubiläumsstiftung der Schweizerischen Mobiliar Genossenschaft | Bürgi-Willert-Stiftung

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