Festival Editions
23
FriWith its annual exhibition, the CTM Festival explores the possibilities and limits of music and sound, and their interference with contemporary art. The 2015 exhibition sounds out various threads connected to the festival theme Un Tune.
Exploring the power of modulating physical and mental states through phenomena such as ASMR, flicker, sensory substitution, psychoacoustics, neo-psychedelia, acoustic alarm response, inter-brain synchronisation, tactile disturbances and more, the featured artists approach human as well as non-human bodies in disquieting and emphatic ways.
Artistic experimentation with the affective and somatic effects of sounds and frequencies opens up possibilities of tuning and de-tuning the composite that interconnects body, matter, energy and machines, but also of atmospheres, spaces, communication and situations. "Un Tune" also serves as an overarching metaphor that refers to the potentials that might be unlocked by temporarily destabilizing our hatibual and consensual states.
Graw Böckler[DE]
Graw Böckler is the joint project of Berlin-based artists Ursula Böckler and Georg Graw, who together and independently work across the popular formats of video and still photography. In collaboration since 1997 and longtime affiliates of CTM Festival, the pair specialise in making music videos and loops, experimental films, and unauthorised commercials.
Mario de Vega[MX/DE]
Mario de Vega is a Mexico City-born experimental sound artist. His works include site-specific interventions and experiments in psychoacoustics that frequently push the limits of audio perception. He uses challenging frequencies said to induce visceral reactions in the audience, and sound as a tool to confront contemporary issues around and personal experiences of vulnerability.
Matthijs Munnik[NL]
Matthijs Munnik is a media artist based in the Hague. Munnik’s expression involves the interaction between light and the senses, and installations are often inspired by scientifically relevant themes. He was recognized as the first winner of the 2013 award for the “International Prize For Emerging Artists In Digital Art”, organised by leCube in Paris.
Anke Eckardt[DE]
Anke Eckardt is a sound and media artist based in Cologne. Her work includes cross-media installations, teaching, and research. She is a professor of sound at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and deputy professor for sound art at the Academy of Music Mainz.
Claire Tolan[US]
Claire Tolan is an artist and programmer based in Berlin, who focuses exploring human-computer interaction, online communities (intimacy, privacy), and information structures and theory.
Zorka Wollny[PL]
Zorka Wollny is a composer and a theatre artist who creates site-specific works which respond to their architectural surroundings. She collaborates—in a director-like mode—with musicians, actors, and dancers and members of the local communities she works in.
Derek Holzer[US/DE]
Derek Holzer is an American instrument builder and sound artist based in Berlin, whose current interests include DIY analogue electronics, field recording, media archaeology and the meeting points of electroacoustic, noise, improv and extreme music.
Nik Nowak[DE]
Nik Nowak is a German artist, musician, and curator interested in sonic affect. His research examines the role that soundsystems occupy as cultural transmitters and acoustic weapons.
Zimoun[CH]
Zimoun is a self-taught artist that is well known for his kinetic sculptures, which combine industrial materials such as cardboard and plastic with motors to create sonically reverberant installations. Zimoun’s works are both acoustic and visual, fueling an interaction between space and sound, while exploring systems of patterns that appear through the use of replicable elements.
emptyset[UK/DE]
emptyset is a multidisciplinary production project founded founded by James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas exploring the sonic possibilities of electroacoustic and computer music, architecture, and performance. Recent record Blossoms, released via Thrill Jockey, comprises a series of experimental collaborations with a machine learning system.
Anita Ackermann[DE]
Anita Ackermann holds two degrees from the University of the Arts in Berlin, and nurtures a special interest the perception and distortion of light and sound. Ackermann’s materials often include mirrors and other surfaces or tools that refract or bend light. She has been designing perceptually obscure installations and sculptures in Berlin, over the last several years.
Konrad Smoleński[PL/CH]
Uncompromising Polish artist Konrad Smoleński works among the fields of photography, video art, installation, performance, and happening. His works often include spectacular pyrotechnic effects — in contrast with the usually minimal punk aesthetic — and are typified by a fine, chiselled precision that lend a purified, ascetic character.
