Press Release 06. November 2018

PRESS RELEASE 06. NOVEMBER 2018

CTM FESTIVAL 2019 – PERSISTENCE FIRST WAVE OF ARTISTS PLUS OPEN CALLS ANNOUNCED

FESTIVAL FOR ADVENTUROUS MUSIC & ART, BERLIN 20th Edition, 25 January – 3 February 2019

CTM will celebrate 20 years in 2019! The festival has always strived to provide a forum that facilitates exchange and networking between different creative communities, while simultaneously fostering open spaces of possibility. It aims to allow those with different backgrounds and interests to explore new cultural interstices. Through a series of concerts, club nights, an exhibition, talks, and other formats, CTM 2019 will invite both longtime and new artistic collaborators and partners to collectively consider the struggles that come with balancing continuity and changeability. In this spirit, this edition's theme of Persistence examines the aesthetic and societal potentials and pains of perseverance, and of its opposite – the transient and the provisional. It’s not only a fitting allegory for our 20th birthday, but also describes an attempt to consider what is worth being persistent about, and how. CTM 2019 will again play out across some of Berlin’s most standout cultural and nightlife venues, including regular partners such as HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berghain, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Festsaal Kreuzberg, Heimathafen, Astra and SchwuZ, and new partners DAAD Gallery, nGbK, and Grießmühle. A limited number of Early-bird Festival Passes are available now via the festival website. Two open calls with deadlines of 2 December are currently out: the CTM 2019 MusicMakers Hacklab Open Call hosted by Peter Kirn of CDM, and the Research Networking Day 2019 Open Call that seeks innovative and critical submissions from students and researchers from different European graduate and postgraduate programmes traversing the fields of audio, arts, media, design, and related theoretical disciplines, and that address the scope of CTM 2019’s Persistence theme. As always, CTM takes place parallel to and in collaboration with transmediale festival. The jointly organised Vorspiel 2019 programme will again bring together a wide range of Berlin-based artists, initiatives, and venues, hosting a city-wide programme of cultural events. An open call for the initiative is also out now. The next CTM 2019 announcement is coming up at the end of November – stay tuned! › www.ctm-festival.de

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FIRST ARTISTS & PROJECTS CONFIRMED FOR CTM 2019

700 Bliss [US] / 9T Antiope & Rainer Kohlberger [INT] / Actress + Young Paint (live AI/AV) [UK] / A Tribe Called Red [CA] / Colin Self [US/DE] / Curl [UK] / DJ Haram [US] / Eartheater [US] / Erwan Keravec [FR] / Gazelle Twin [UK] / Kai Whiston [UK] / Khyam Allami [IQ/LB] / Lotic [US/DE] / Lucy Railton [UK/DE] / Mina & MC Bryte [UK/GH] / Rabih Beaini & Pouya Pour-Amin Ensemble [INT] / Riobamba [US] / Stefan Fraunberger [AT] / Temp-Illusion [IR] / Thomas Ankersmit [NL/DE] / Tirzah [UK] / Yves Tumor [US]

CTM is pleased to welcome a number of artists grappling with the complexities of today’s political and cultural climate. Gazelle Twin, the nightmarish figure with a penchant for distorted vocals, will bring her new, unsettling character to Berghain. Her recent album Pastoral dispenses with a corrosive critique of the state of England today. With neoliberalism reigning, nationalism on the rise, and Brexit imminent, Twin’s signature demonic identity has been reimagined as a jester clad in the colours of England’s flag - a figure that “picks away at the bucolic, Constable-generated image of English countryside like a fetid scab” (The Quietus).

Club trailblazer Lotic will debut the ambitious new A/V collaboration “Endless Power” with visual artist Emmanuel Biard, who has worked with artists such as Evian Christ and Koreless. This performance arrives on the back of Lotic’s debut LP Power, which was shared via Tri Angle Records in 2018. Across 11 tracks, the record grapples with empowerment, struggle, growth, and resilience, articulating “a battle cry for the queer community” (Resident Advisor). As Lotic navigates identity and genre, they continually confirm their position as one of club music’s most original voices.

Amalgamating elements of hip hop, dubstep, and traditional pow wow music is A Tribe Called Red. Hailing from Canada, the duo is comprised of Tim "2oolman" Hill (Mohawk, of the Six Nations of the Grand River) and Ehren "Bear Witness" Thomas (of the Cayuga First Nation). Since they first formed in 2008, ATCR have established their voice in a vital contemporary indigenous rights movement known as Idle No More. Their most recent album, We Are the Halluci Nation, features contributions from rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def), and Polaris Prize-winning singers Tanya Tagaq and Lido, among others. An enduring testament to the importance of indigenous culture, ATCR promote inclusivity, empathy and acceptance amongst all races and genders in the name of social justice.

In collaboration with transmediale, CTM continues its critical engagement with the artistic and social potentials of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Young Paint has been progressively learning and emulating the shadowy, unpredictable, UK bass- and rave-inspired music of Darren J. Cunningham, aka Actress. Over the course of 2018, the AI-based character has spent time programming and arranging Cunningham’s sonic palette, learning not only how to react to his work, but also to take the lead with the occasional solo. A life-size projection of Young Paint working in a virtual studio parallels Cunningham’s performance on stage, visualising their collaboration. The duo released a mini-album this October via Werk__Ltd. (a new collaborative label between The Vinyl Factory and Actress), which delivers a sneak peak of these improvisational ventures. This two-night appearance at CTM 2019 / transmediale 2019 Collaborative Concert will be a world premiere event, marking the first time that Young Paint will perform live in collaboration with Actress on stage.

CTM 2019 will also explore tensions between past, present, and futures via multiple artistic practices, including that of Breton piper Erwan Keravec, who has been weaving folk lineages of bagpipes into contemporary music. With his most recent “Sonneurs” project, Keravec has invited composers such as Wolfgang Mitterer and Susumu Yoshida to explore how the cultural and sonic identities of the

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Breton bagpipe family can be reshaped. The series features two of Britanny’s historic piping instruments alongside the Scottish bagpipe (a relative newcomer to Brittany), and the trelombard, ultimately forming an unconventional ensemble. In Keravec’s words, “Perhaps, one day, this ensemble will become part of the Western erudite music tradition – who knows?”

Presenting his alchemical research on the influence of nature on culture is Austrian artist and composer Stefan Fraunberger. His work touches on time, periphery, memory, and transience – as evidenced in his Quellgeister research. The series has developed through archeological sonic research on semi-ruined organs discovered in saxon churches in Transylvania. Fraunberger sees these instruments in the liminal areas beyond nature and culture, reinforced by their location in cultural deserts of the European present. Fraunberger’s recordings focus not on preservation, but rather on speculation, as he considers the identity of objects as they become less tied to human significance.

The Iraqi artist, musicologist, and Nawa label head Khyam Allami will premiere Kawalees: Part II. Wary of technology’s Western bias, Allami has been researching and developing Comma, a new plugin for Ableton Live that aims to open the DAW up to artists working with Middle Eastern musical traditions. Finding popular music software exclusive of much Arabic music, Allami focuses on Arabic microtonal modes, using Comma to enable a new pathway between Middle Eastern tonality and contemporary electronic performance. Rooted in Allami’s Comma software, Kawalees is one outcome of the his ongoing research on such cultural asymmetries, and his persistence to balance them.

The world premiere of “Perceptual Geography”, a new piece by Thomas Ankersmit, is inspired by and dedicated to Maryanne Amacher, one of the most uncompromising and persistent sound artists. Marking 10 years since the sonic pioneer’s passing, the three-dimensional sonic composition is rooted in Amacher’s extensive research on perception, psychoacoustic phenomena, sound spatialization, aural architecture, and in expanding the role of the listener. The piece will be presented alongside a performance from London-based composer and cellist Lucy Railton, who bridges electroacoustic and modern classical lineages. Her debut album, Paradise 94, was released via Modern Love in 2018, and weaves together archival, location, and studio recordings. Railton’s detail-oriented, convention- confounding approach imagines how sonic cultures evolve, mutate, and persist; “you can only properly begin to f*ck with something from the inside once you truly know it.”

CTM is proud to continue our partnership with Iran’s SET Festival by hosting several works developed and presented under the SET x CTM umbrella this past summer in Tehran. Noise techno duo Temp-Illusion will appear alongside the presentation of a new piece for electronics and small acoustic ensemble by Rabih Beaini and Pouya Pour-Amin. Beaini, otherwise known as Morphosis, boasts plenty of experience in the techno and experimental/improv worlds, and Pouramin is a Tehran-based composer and multi-instrumentalist. A second new collaboration between Paris-based duo 9T Antiope (Sara Bigdeli Shamloo and Nima Aghiani) and visual artist Rainer Kohlberger will also see its Berlin premiere. Titled “Nocebo”, a term for when a patient’s negative expectations cause their treatment to have a more negative effect, the work “recounts the stories of beings, who have given up, forcing themselves into complete isolation.” Through visuals, sound, and text, the artists explore images inside the brain of a comatose being, reflecting on their experiences of having loved ones stuck in a vegetative state.

Following the release of new record Siblings on RVNG, Colin Self will perform live with a choir and string ensemble. The record marks the final chapter of his speculative sci-fi operetta series, Elation. Inspired by the work of seminal feminist theorist Donna Haraway, Siblings imagines new forms of kinships, and formulates methods of collective persistence amidst environmental destruction.

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Also vocal about the political potentials of music is Riobamba, who is part of Discwoman’s formidable roster. The Ecuadorian-Lithuanian DJ’s exuberant style of mixing has been described as “exalting, joyous, [and] sexy” (The Fader), and can be relied on to bring heat to the dancefloor. With her label and agency APOCALIPSIS, Riobamba creates visibility for those “ni de aquí/ni de allá” (not from here, nor from there), showcasing Latinx artists, and allowing them to create their own kind of representation.

Another Discwoman affiliate, DJ Haram throws down for Jersey, Philly, and Baltimore with club and booty bounce sets, but has also been known to pay homage to Middle Eastern dance music and DIY noise cultures. The Philadelphia-based artist is known for curating fundraiser party series (f)LAWLESS, DIY hip hop night Gas, and monthly radio show RAGE RADIO on RINSE FM London. Together with poet and musician Moor Mother, Haram is also part of 700 Bliss. Their debut release, Spa 700, pairs DJ Haram’s distinctive lo-fi productions with Moor Mother’s impassioned strain of doom-poetry. The duo are now working on an LP, which is to be released next year.

Kai Whiston is a young artist known for ferocious, dark, yet playful productions shaped by hard, bassy sounds such as dubstep and bassline. Whiston has released via labels TAR and Big Dada, and collaborated with artists such as Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes, South London MC Buchanan, and experimental designer Sam Rolfes. The 19 year-old producer will release his debut LP later this month.

The enigmatic Eartheater is known for an extensive vocal range, a singular approach to production, and a love for the pageantry of performing. Previously having performed as Alexandra Drewchin, as well as with Greg Fox as Guardian Alien, Eartheater is the newest and strangest incarnation of Drewchin’s musical ventures. Her most recent album IRISIRI (released on PAN) is rooted in the theme of “curiosity liberates infinite truth,” or C.L.I.T. – a mantra that has been central to her experiences as an autodidact.

Producer and DJ Mina will be “bringing sunshine to the club” (FACT). Displaying an affinity for low- slung rhythms, the UK-based artist released EP Sentah via independent Portuguese label Enchufada in 2017 - a release that drew from UK funky, dancehall, afrobeats, and other syncopated sounds. Mina can be found working with artists such as Don Sinni, Gafacci, and perhaps most famously, MC Bryte. The Ghanaian MC will join her in delivering Panorama Bar with a crucial dose of warmth and joy.

CTM 2019’s closing concert will present Curl - a label, community, and collective formed by Brother May, Coby Sey, and Mica Levi. Brother May is an MC and vocalist known for his warm, joyful style. NTS Radio regular Coby Sey released EP Transport for Lewisham via Whities in 2017. Mica Levi, also known as Micachu, is known for her work with The Shapes (now Good Sad Happy Bad), as well as for acclaimed film scores for Under the Skin (2013) and Jackie (2016). Making her Berlin debut is R&B- influenced singer and frequent Levi collaborator Tirzah. Her heartfelt and intimate LP Devotion was released in August on Domino, and described as a “compelling vision of what imperfect pop music can be” (Pitchfork). Completing the lineup is restless sonic provocateur Yves Tumor, associated with unpredictable live shows and a dynamic discography. He is known for his 2016 LP on PAN, Serpent Music, and more recently for Safe in the Hands of Love, his debut record for Warp. Described as “primal, beautiful, and beseeching” (Pitchfork), the album presents a bizarre take on distorted pop.

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CTM RADIO LAB COMMISSION WINNERS

AURELIE NYIRABIKALI LIERMAN AND ISRAEL MARTINEZ

Two winning projects have been selected from an open call for the CTM 2019 Radio Lab. Awarded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Radio Art/Klangkunst and CTM Festival, in collaboration with ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst festival, Ö1 Kunstradio, and The Wire magazine, the CTM 2019 Radio Lab open call sought unusual explorations of the artistic possibilities of radio and live performance or installation mediums, while also addressing the CTM 2019 – Persistence theme. With Sogokuru, Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman researches (modern) forms of animism, and how animistic worldviews have managed to survive in spite of severe oppression through heavy colonization. Herself born in Rwanda but raised in Belgium, Lierman takes direct inspiration from a series of life-changing encounters with her 108-year-old grandfather, one of the last living Rwandan traditional hunters and doctors that has seen the pre-colonial country of his childhood pass through two colonization events (German and Belgian), the 1950s revolution for independence, the genocide and post-war massacres of the 90s, and the country's present-day turmoil. Lierman's family visits have resulted in an ongoing investigation into the soundscape of contemporary urban and rural East Africa, and of her native region of Virunga in particular. The piece takes its name from the Rwandan word for “grandfather”, an honorable, loving term used in the country’s pre-colonial gerontocracy. Phil England of The Wire comments: "Sogokuru will give festival attendees and radio listeners a unique perspective into a contrasting cultural perspective, one that we hope will transport listeners into another reality while providing an insight into a colonial past that needs confronting as well as a powerful, living example of persistence." "Persistence in Mexico, as in other parts of the world, or rather, throughout the world, today, is not a choice or a possibility: it is a condition to be able to survive, to be able to imagine a different future ... contributing substantially to critical thinking and resistance throughout the world" writes Mexican sound artist Israel Martínez. With Love and Rage, the artist proposes a tribute to the persistence of resistance via a series of powerful, intimate performances that make "a very strong sonic statement on political activism in Mexico, resonating with many forms of persistence around the world." Marcus Gammel (Deutschlandfunk Kultur). The winning works will be premiered at CTM 2019 Festival in Berlin, with radio versions to be broadcast via Deutschlandfunk Kultur (spring 2019). The works will also be presented by the Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF Austrian Broadcasting Service) via one of their platforms: the ORF Zeit-Ton or Ö1 Kunstradio shows, or the ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst festival in Graz.

The CTM 2019 Radio Lab is a collaboration with Deutschlandfunk Kultur Hörspiel / Klangkunst, Goethe-Institut, and the ORF. Supported by The Wire.

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OPEN CALL – MUSICMAKERS HACKLAB 2019

“ADAPTION”

Dates: 28.1.– 3.2.2019 | HAU Hebbel am Ufer | Opening 25.1.2019 Kunstquartier Bethanien The MusicMakers Hacklab is a performance laboratory that aims to invent tools and strategies for improvised play. This year, we traveled to Indonesia to explore “Play Ecology” and models for ensemble; now we return to Berlin to create a space for performance-making. If persistence is an insistence on survival, then adaptation is the mechanism by which we can deal with adversity, become resourceful, and make something new by responding to the conditions around us. We invite artists to work together to make new and unplanned collaborative performances on this theme of adaptation. How can a group working together feed one another to generate rather than compete for resources? How can music be a speculative medium for sustainability at a time when we face now-inevitable shifts in the world's politics and climate? Can we imagine interactions with one another that propagate rather than consume? The Hacklab is a place for collaboration and skill sharing. Singers and carpenters, poets and programmers, dancers and electrical engineers, architects and conductors – and anyone interested in attempting together what is inconceivable alone – are welcome to apply. In a spirit of community, the Hacklab will be open to walk-ins from both hackers and the general public. A series of Hacklab Input talks will also be held within CTM 2019’s talk programme, providing inspiration for Hacklab fellows and the public. We’ll have a week together to explore and invent, culminating in a live performance at HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2) on Sunday 3 February. An open call is out now: https://www.ctm-festival.de/festival-2019/transfer/musicmakers-hacklab/ Submission Deadline: 02.12.2018 Fellows will be announced before the end of December. Unfortunately we cannot grant any funding for travel and accommodation, but participants will receive a CTM 2019 festival pass.

The CTM 2018 MusicMakers Hacklab CTM 2019 is supported by Senate Department of Culture and Europe, Initiative Musik, SHAPE, and the Goethe-Institut Southeast Asia within the framework of Nusasonic.

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OPEN CALL – RESEARCH NETWORKING DAY 2019

Date: 26.1.2019 | 12:00 – 18:00 | Kunstquartier Bethanien

The Research Networking Day (RND) is an exchange platform for students and researchers from different European graduate and postgraduate programmes traversing the fields of audio, arts, media, design, and related theoretical disciplines. This RND edition will take place in collaboration with the Humboldt University Department of Musicology, the German Association for Music Business and Music Culture Research (GMM) and the “Popular Music and Media” study programme (BA/MA Paderborn University, DE). The RND 2019 open call seeks innovative and critical submissions from all areas of study addressing the scope of CTM 2019’s Persistence theme. We invite students and junior scholars to present their research at an international platform that provides a good opportunity to meet various colleagues and researchers working on related ideas. Persons pursuing higher levels of research/studies are also welcome to submit a proposal. The selected candidates will give short presentations (10 min.) within different modules, linked by discussion rounds and completed by a closing discussion at the end of the day. Presentations should take place in English. Please send your presentation proposal with an abstract of max. 200 words and a short bio to [email protected] with subject: RND Persistence. Application deadline: 2 December 2018. The presentation programme will be announced late December. Unfortunately we cannot grant any funding for travel and accommodation, but participants will receive a CTM 2019 festival pass.

The Research Networking Day 2019 is a collaboration with the Humboldt University Department of Musicology, the German Association for Music Business and Music Culture Research (GMM), and Paderborn University.

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CALL FOR PARTICPATION – VORSPIEL 2019

Opening: 18.1.2019 | ACUD Macht Neu Runs: 19.1.–3.2.2019 | various Berlin venues With Vorspiel 2019, transmediale and CTM Festival continue the yearly tradition of strengthening Berlin’s network and scene of artists, curators, institutions, and independent project spaces. The Vorspiel network aims to connect different genres and practices, offering opportunities for exchange and reflection, as well as for sharing critical discourse on art, technology, politics, and identity. The jointly created program presents the diverse approaches of multiple cultural agents in a concentrated format, while also creating a space for dialogue with the two festivals. For this reason, each edition of Vorspiel takes place right before transmediale and CTM kick off. The Vorspiel 2019 Call for Participants seeks independent project spaces, platforms, curators, and artists in Berlin. The idea is to create a program (with exhibitions, performances, concerts, presentations, and other formats) that unfolds all over the city in spaces dedicated to digital art and culture, and experimental sound and music. The two-week event series will start with a shared opening event on 18 January 2019 at ACUD MACHT NEU, organized by transmediale and CTM Festival with all participating venues. Registration Deadline: 23 November 2018. More information and to register: https://vorspiel.berlin/

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CTM 2019 THEME – PERSISTENCE

As polarising stances and simplistic rhetoric continue to proliferate at alarming rates, we are faced with the difficulties of resisting them and the rifts they create. The challenge lies in cultivating persistence without tumbling into rigidity or dogma – in cultivating a steadfastness through a recognition of diversity, difference, and hybridity while also embracing fluidity, uncertainty, and flux. With Persistence, CTM 2019 examines the aesthetic and societal potentials and pains of perseverance, and of its opposite: the transient and the provisional, and considers the struggles that come with balancing continuity and changeability. Music and art today are characterised by continuous searching, open-ended experimentation, and the speculative nature of hypotheses, which allows for a positive adoption of uncertainty. A hypothesis is always open to being corrected or discarded. It requires constant questioning and exchange: Listening, critical discussion, and doubt are inherent components of this process, as are sensing and recognising inconsistencies and differences. A decisive difference between artistic and scientific hypotheses is that art and music take subjective feelings, personal experiences, empathy, the imaginary, and desire as their starting points. Artistic propositions can therefore never be completely eliminated, and because they need to be experienced, they offer transitory moments of radical pluralisation. Thinking and acting on this basis is a form of resistance against essentialism and naturalistic misconceptions, against the absolute, and unshakable identities, and also against the corrosive powers of uncertainty. So, can music and art provide us with methods to move towards new societal horizons? Can we maintain a productive, idealistic kind of perseverance – a persistence of the transitory? The persistence of transience is not only a fitting allegory for CTM Festival’s 20-year anniversary, it also describes an attempt to think of collectiveness, community, and subcultures as fleeting, experience-based associations. It’s a framework for considering them as testing grounds for collective speculation rather than rigid or exclusive constructs. CTM has always strived to provide a forum that facilitates exchange and networking between different creative communities, while at the same time fostering open spaces of possibility that also allow those who are non-associated to navigate the interstices and try things out. In order to keep such spaces open, however, we must also insist on stable economic conditions. To survive as an artist and to maintain communities and spaces of open discourse make for great challenges worldwide. We urgently need concepts, tools and structures that enable music and cultural creators to continuously experiment in a self-determined manner and to freely associate themselves. CTM’s 20th anniversary edition – which was for a long time unimaginable to us – brings together many actors and initiatives across music, culture, and technology to imagine, discuss and celebrate open and pluralistic structures.

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FESTIVAL PASSES, TICKETS, PRESS ACCREDITATION CTM 2019 early-bird passes are now on sale! Festivalgoers can choose from CTM 2019 Gold and regular passes, as well as CTM / transmediale 2019 Connect Passes that grant access to both festivals. Available while quantities last. Press accreditation is now open, with an application deadline of 7 January 2019. Tickets to individual events will be gradually made available as of December. For more information and to purchase, please visit: https://www.ctm-festival.de/festival-2019/tickets/

PRESS CONTACT Guido Möbius › [email protected] › +49 (0) 30 29002161

FESTIVAL CONTACT CTM Festival Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin › [email protected] › +49 (0)30 4404 1852

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CTM 2019 PARTNERS & FUNDERS

Funded by: Senate Department of Culture and Europe | Initiative Musik | Goethe-Institut | Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

Supporters: SAE

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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