25 August 2022
KONTAKTE '22 Festival presents five days of new works of electroacoustic music and sound art installations
With Johannes Kreidler, Pony Says, the Female Laptop Orchestra, Clemens Gadenstätter, Netta Weiser, Phillip Sollmann and many others
16 & 22 – 25 September 2022, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg
The Akademie der Künste’s KONTAKTE '22 Festival, which takes place on 16 and 22 to 25 September 2022, offers a multifaceted spectrum of current artistic trends and developments in the fields of electroacoustic music and sound art. For five days, the Akademie building on Hanseatenweg will serve as a venue for a series of concerts, performances, sound installations and discussion panels, and a meeting place for artists, music lovers and experts. The festival was conceived and organised by the Studio for Electroacoustic Music at the Akademie der Künste under the direction of Malte Giesen, and is part of the Month of Contemporary Music in Berlin.
The focus of the programme is on works created during the cultural standstill brought about by the pandemic, thus showcasing direct artistic reactions to this state of emergency and outstanding examples of what can be achieved by grappling with existential personal questions. In his installation, Johannes Kreidler creates an interplay of different waveforms, combining the Robert Koch Institute’s daily reports on the corona wave with waves in graphic form and sound waves. In her installation Fluid Memory. Fluidic Computer, Ioana Vreme Moser addresses the issue of biological vulnerability and examines the relationship between the body and technology. The Female Laptop Orchestra (FLO) deals with the topics of distance, distances and mobility: In their hybrid performance, FLO artists interact on site in Berlin with live FLO performers and dancers from Spain, France and Japan, thereby posing the question of sustainability in relation to travel in world of arts and culture.
Addition programme details
KONTAKTE '22 begins on Friday, 16 September at 8 pm with the world premiere of the full-length concert installation ES und AnderES by Clemens Gadenstätter, performed by ensemble mosaik and the soprano Anna Hauf, conducted by Enno Poppe.
On the following Thursday, 22 September at 8 pm, the trio Pony Says, which specialises in contemporary music and free improvisation, will open the festival weekend with a world premiere by Ui-Kyung Lee and works by Yiran Zhao, Jessie Marino and Martin Schüttler. Starting at 10 pm, DJ Phillip Sollmann, formerly a celebrated resident DJ at the Berghain under his pseudonym Efdemin, will be DJing in the Buchengarten. In addition, throughout the building there will be a number of sound installations by Ioana Vreme Moser, Johannes Kreidler, Verena Lercher and Mario de Vega, which open on Thursday and can be explored over the entire festival weekend. Three performances of Nessun Dorma, a love discourse installation for two robots by director Elsa-Sophie Jach and stage designer Thea Hoffmann-Axthelm and her team, can be seen on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
On Friday, 23 September at 6 pm, the Berlin-based electro-acoustic trio Lange//Berweck//Lorenz will perform works by Kirsten Reese, Midori Hirano, Korhan Erel and Alvin Lucier for synthesizer trio, some on historical synthesizers belonging to the Akademie der Künste. The trio will also perform HARK 1b together with Christoph Ogiermann, an attempt at live adaptation of electroacoustic projects. At 8 pm, Netta Weiser explores the possibilities of acoustic translation of choreographic practice in the world premiere of Radio-Choreographies: Hereafter. The evening comes to a close with the performance FLO & FRIENDS: City Jam Berlin by the Female Laptop Orchestra at 10 pm.
Under the title Über Landschaften und Räume, the Berliner Lautsprecherorchester, together with students from Berlin's conservatories will present a number of new electroacoustic works on Saturday, 24 September at 4 pm. As part of the annual concert of DEGEM, which takes place at 6 pm with an elaborate 8-channel full-range setup, the Thomas Seelig Fixed Media Prize will be awarded to Jonty Harrison. Beginning at 9 pm is the world premiere of Maximilian Marcoll's immersive performance for two electric guitars and live electronics: ACHK: ACHK DREI. Daniela Huerta wraps up the evening with a DJ set.
On Sunday, 25 September, from 11 am to 6 pm, the online and radio event Radio(non)Conference I, conceived and moderated by Netta Weiser and Anna Leon, will be broadcast live on Akademie Radio and on reboot.fm (88.4 MHz in Berlin, 90.7 MHz in Potsdam, and online). The KONTAKTE '22 programme will be rounded off with a variety of lectures, panels and discussions.
The KONTAKTE Festival for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art brings together ideas, works, artists, as well as enthusiasts from the areas of contemporary music, the electronics scene, performance art and the visual arts. The festival, which the Studio for Electroacoustic Music of the Akademie der Künste has been organising every two years since 2015, is named after a concert series initiated in 1980 by the Akademie der Künste (East) to present East German electroacoustic works. That concert series, in turn, refers to Karlheinz Stockhausen's work Kontakte from the late 1950s.
KONTAKTE '22 is funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa des Landes Berlin.
The festival is part of the Month of Contemporary Music in Berlin.
The full festival programme is available online at: www.field-notes.berlin
Event information
KONTAKTE '22
Festival for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art
Concerts, performances, sound installations, panel discussions
16 & 22 – 25 September 2022
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Tickets: tel. +49 30 200 57-2000, ticket@adk.de, Tickets online: www.adk.de/tickets
Single tickets concerts/performances: €13/7
Concert & DJ set Thurs., 22 Sept.: €20/11
Day ticket Friday, 23 Sept.: €24/15
Day ticket Saturday, 24 Sept.: €36/21
Sound installations and other events: Free admission
Press photos for download here
Press contact:
On behalf of the Akademie der Künste
Stefan Stahnke, Tel. 030 3478 1984, st@worteuebermusik.de