[Microsound-announce] INTERFACE festival for music and related arts

[Elke Moltrecht]

September 15 – October 7, 2006

INTERFACE
festival for music and related arts

BALLHAUS Naunynstraße Kreuzberg
WASSERSPEICHER Prenzlauer Berg
www.interface-festival.de
www.ballhausnaunyn.de

Peter Ablinger ++ Taner Akyol ++ Thomas Ankersmit ++ Marc Behrens ++ Dominik Busch ++ Tony Conrad ++ Charles Curtis ++ Reinhold Friedl ++ Georg Friedrich Haas ++ Hanna Hartman ++ Boris Hegenbart ++ 17 Hippies ++ IG Blech ++ Felix Kubin ++ Christina Kubisch ++ Hans Peter Kuhn ++ Jean-Francois Laporte ++ Lillevän ++ LiteraturWERKstatt Berlin ++ Alvin Lucier ++ Behnam Manahedji ++ Chico Mello ++ Mik.Musik! ++ 10 Jahre planet rock: Gustav & Jason Forrest Band ++ Quatuor Bozzini ++ Eliane Radigue ++ Kirsten Reese ++ Marc Sabat ++ Philip Samartzis ++ Salvatore Sciarrino ++ Steamboat Switzerland ++ Velma ++ Michael Vorfeld ++ Michael Wertmüller ++ Christoph Winkler ++ Achim Wollscheid ++ Ensemble Zwischentöne u. v. a.        

INTERFACE is the prelude to a new era in Kreuzberg’s Ballhaus Naunynstraße under the new artistic direction of Elke Moltrecht. She has opened up the house from its café in the cellar to the attic to the most diversified art forms and has created a network of many partners. Among these, the Ballhaus Naunynstraße counts a special collaborator: the Wasserspeicher (Water Reservoirs) in Prenzlauer Berg. Two locations from the 19th Century, both listed as historic monuments, which could not be more different: the water reservoirs are half underground, dark, damp, acoustically alive and mysterious – the Ballhaus Naunynstraße is a light architectonic jewel, hidden in a back courtyard, surrounded by a garden terrace. Because of its acoustic versatility, it presents the ideal space for the most diverse musical experiments and artistic formats. These contrasts are reflected again in the works created especially for the sites!

Included in the program will be concerts of contemporary, electronic and popular music as well as older and traditional music; in addition, film and photography, light, dance and concert performances, installations, audio-visual live improvisations and a sound exhibit. INTERFACE networks artists not yet presented in Berlin with local talent, one emphasis being on the collaboration with artists from Australia and Canada/Quebec.

Concept/Artistic Direction/Program: Elke Moltrecht
Curators for Immersion 4 and the Exhibition in the Großer Wasserspeicher:
Elke Moltrecht, Philip Samartzis 

Locations:
Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Naunynstraße 27, Berlin-Kreuzberg (U Kottbusser Tor)
Großer Wasserspeicher, Belforter Straße, Prenzlauer Berg (U Senefelderplatz)
Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Diedenhofer Straße, Prenzlauer Berg (U Senefelderplatz)



PROGRAM BALLHAUS NAUNYNSTRAßE: 

September 15 – October 7 from 6 p.m. to midnight on days of events

Stairwell
17 HIPPIES (Berlin) Das Hip-O-Phon
Interactive sound sculpture by Christopher Blenkinsop and Klaus Wagner with music by the 17 Hippies


Gallery
HANS PETER KUHN (Berlin) Population 2
Sound sculpture 

Stairwell
Charlotte Mathesie “Jetzt lächeln!”  
Photo exhibition

Café
REALAMBIENT/MICHAEL RÜSENBERG (Cologne) 
Listening gallery with urban sound collages

September 15, 2006

8 pm performance hall
Opening Concert 
Felix Kubin (Hamburg) (voice, electronics, turntable) 

mik.musik.!. Label Showcase (Poland) 
with The Complainer, CO, Deuce & 8Rolek

Closing performance, Café
Thomas Meadowcroft (Australia, Berlin) (electric organ, Elka XT19) 

16. September 2006

6:30 pm Terrace 

IG Blech (Berlin)

8 pm main hall 

Velma (Schweiz, Berlin) Applique 
Conzert performance with actors  

Christian Garcia (guitar, electronics) Stephane Vecchione (drums) Christophe Jaquet (voice), Olivier Marietti (films, multimedia) Valérie Huguenin und Arantxa Martinez (actresses)

September 16, 2006

8 pm main hall
10 Years planet rock –  The Anniversary Concert

Jason Forrest / Donna Summer (Sonig, Cockrockdisco Berlin) & Band meet 
Gustav (Mosz, Vienna), DJs The Goldmunds (Goldmund, Berlin)
September 19, 2006

8 pm main hall
Christoph Winkler  (Germany) We Are Time (Premiere)
New Dance Work by Christoph Winkler 
Version for Ballhaus Naunynstraße
Music: Tony Conrad “Four Violins” , Dance: Zufit Simon (Israel)

September 20, 2006

8 pm main hall 
Traditional Music Meets Old Music
Behnam Manaheji (santur – Persian zither, Berlin) Solo
Taner Akyol (baglama – Turkish long necked lute, Berlin) Solo
Hans-Werner Apel (citharrone, Berlin) Solo 

September 27, 2006
8 pm main hall 
MUSICA BRASILEIRA A TRÊS – Brazilian Music for Three 
Maria Teresa Madeira, piano; Rodolfo Cardoso, percussion, vibraphone; Tim Rescala sampler (Brazil), special guest: Chico Mello, voc, gt. 
With compositions by: Tim Rescala, Edino Krieger, Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, Gilberto Mendes

October 2, 2006
8 pm main hall
Charles Curtis (USA) Cello Solo 
(See also September 24 in the Wasserspeicher)
Alvin Lucier: „Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas“ (1973-74) (Original- version) sine waves, unattended percussion
Alvin Lucier: „Charles Curtis“ (2002) for solo cello with slow sweep, pure wave oscillators

Quatuor Bozzini (Canada/Québec) 
(See also September 30 in the Wasserspeicher)
Clemens Merkel (violin), Nadia Francavilla (violin), 
Isabelle Bozzini (cello),  Stéphanie Bozzini (viola) 

Wolfgang Heiniger: „Lamento V“
Louis Dufort: „Miniatures“ (2005)
Steve Reich: „Different Trains“ 

October 4, 2006
8 pm main hall
Performances for Sound and Light (Germany/Australia)
Michael Vorfeld (light), Philip Samartzis (live electronics)
Michael Vorfeld (light), Boris D Matsui-Hegenbart (live electronics)

October 5, 2006
8 pm main hall
EMS Stockholm presents 
Live Electronic Performances
Sabine Vogel (UA), Lise-Lotte Norelius (UA), Mats Lindström
Dance Performance – The Blessing of a Bad Memory
Choreography: Gunilla Heilborn, Dance: Katarina Eriksson, Music: Hanna Hartman (UA) 
Live Electronic Performances
Sabine Vogel/Lise Lotte Norelius (UA)
Hanna Hartman „Arba da Karba“ (2006)

During the Pause, Café 
Video Program
with Jalmar Staaf, Linnea Sjöstrand Bergman, Viking Eggeling, Jonas Söderberg 

October 7, 2006
8 pm main hall 

Barbara Lüneburg (violin/viola)
CD Release Concert The Refined Ear (label coviello contemporary)

Georg Friedrich Haas …aus freier lust…verbunden… (1996)
Salvatore Sciarrino 6 Capricci (1976)
Georg Friedrich Haas de terrae fine (2001)
Manfred Stahnke Capra (1987)

Elke Moltrecht
Künstlerische Leiterin
Artistic Director
Ballhaus Naunynstraße
Naunynstraße 27
10997 Berlin
phone: +49 (0)30 3474 598 46
fax: +49 (0)30 3474 598 55
moltrecht at ballhausnaunyn.de









































INSTALLATIONS IN THE GROßEN WASSERSPEICHER


September 21 to October 1, 2006

September 21, 6:30 pm Opening 

Thomas Ankersmit (Holland, Berlin) (sax) 
Improvisation Acoustic Solo 

The improvised music of Thomas Ankersmit is multi-layered: saxophone, synthesizers, spatial acoustics and their modification. His solo in the large reservoir - which has a measurable echo of 16-18 seconds - can, for a musician who is familiar with such extreme sound phenomena, be seen as a challenge of a very special kind.


September 22 – October 1, 2006  3 pm – midnight 

Installations by

Philip Samartzis/Martine Corompt (Australia) 
Dodg’em 
A self-drivable surround sound space installation 

“Dodg’em” is an interactive surround sound installation which is controlled by pedal cars for adults. Members of the public drive around inside one of the empty rings of the large reservoir: this controls the soundscapes of invisible terrains and triggers natural as well as abstract sound events. The audience drives along an Australian and a Berlin sound landscape. “Dodg’em” was awarded the Australian National Digital Art Award in 1999 as best interactive installation.   

With the use of Berlinsounds by Uli Aumüller www.inpetto-filmproduktion.de/audio 


Achim Wollscheid (Germany) – Keine Mitte (don't let me down)
Light Installation in the Water Tower

A 60 Watt light bulb hangs in the water tower of the reservoir. It can be moved up and down by means of a motorized winch. As visitors enter and climb the winding staircase to the water tower, light – controlled by sensors - accompanies their movements. A curious interaction between light bulb and man.


Dominic Redfern (Australia) – Round
Sound/Video Installation

Dominic Redfern’s installations combine performance with filmed recordings and elements of architecture. For Interface he will create a site-specific installation at the Wasserspeicher utilizing the unique circular structure of the reservoir as both the source of material and location of the installation. In the manner of his recent installation work, Round will involve the use of 1:1 scale video as well as footage that appears to be unedited and in ‘real time’. These elements will combine to locate the work firmly in the space and create an illusory relationship between the video space and physical location. An array of speakers and monitors will be employed to create a fragmented, but spatially accurate, portrait of Redfern himself running round and round the inner circle, falling, getting back up and starting over again.




Andrew Curtis (Australia) – Slab / Underpin
Photography Exhibit

Twenty years ago, while studying photography, Andrew Curtis began to photograph industrial landscapes: Melbourne’s old docks, factories, workshops, electrical substations and more recently, building sites. Working in a surrealist mode, Curtis creates a world of his own invention, making the everyday unfamiliar, removing the distinction between imagination and reality. These transformations are achieved largely through lighting. Using various sizes of handheld torch he is able to pick out details freely, moving the lamp during exposure. Working in darkness, he has the photographic equivalent of a blank canvas, though in charcoal black, with his lamps painting in the lighter tones. The result has no equivalent in nature, the eerie artificial glow is like something from a dream, or a film. It is all artifice. The setups are intricate and difficult to photograph, the building sites are turned into giant still lifes.

This exhibition is made up of two bodies of work: Slab and Underpin.

Slab focuses on the concrete slabs of industrial pre-fab architecture. Banal concrete walls and steel struts are transformed into sites of magic, danger and struggle. Photographing at night, Curtis created a series of looming monoliths, criss-crossing shadows and pulsing, glowing forms. One can sense the photographer’s admiration for strong geometric forms, even when shot in the darkest tones, sometimes hinting at strange rituals. 
Underpin is a continuation of Slab, though in a much darker vein. Slab is also a dark piece but it had fun with the monolithic shapes (which made reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey). In Underpin, the gaze is directed downward and the subject is at ground level or below. The ditches, tunnels and waste signify an anal vision, dark, barren and hidden; the airless claustrophobic caverns seem somehow pagan.



Philip Brophy (Australia) – Evaporated Music
Sound Installation

Dolby Surround DVD of raw image violence and monstrous alien sound. Slick videos by Elton John, Billy Joel & Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, Celine Dion & Mariah Carey are projected in their full length, the original sound track erased and replaced by a complete movie theater sound design. Women lose their roles as supernatural, angel-like beings and become physical, driven by instinct like men. Elton John turns into a rusted gargoyle, Phil Collins into a chaste chimera, Billy Joel into a monstrous machine. The fantasy world of pop music is mercilessly revealed.

This installation was made available by the National Gallery of Victoria for INTERFACE. 
 

INTERVENTIONS IN THE KLEINEN WASSERSPEICHER

September 21, 2006
8 pm
Steamboat Switzerland feat. Michael Wertmüller and Lieder (Switzerland, Deutschland)
Dominik Blum (Hammond organ, Korg ms 20), Marino Pliakas (bass) Lucas Niggli (drums, percussion), special guests: Michael Wertmüller (percussion), Lieder – Ex-Alboth (voice)

The power of a fully cranked up Hammond organ, an electric bass distorted to unrecognizability  and a thrashing drum set! Driven on by a high pressure mix of metal riffs, contemporary sound material and free improvisation, the steamboat wraps its own noise disturbances up in strangely moving harmonies. And it’s crashing and sputtering quite violently in  the machine room! Steamboat Switzerland works in such a way that joins new music, improvisation and elements from rock music together to investigate new integrative narrative forms above and beyond the simple crossover. 
 

September 22, 2006
8 pm 
Immersion 4 Germany/Australia Part I – Audio/Visual Live Performances

Immersion 4 is a series of live concerts (See also October 4 in the Ballhaus Naunynstraße) that explore the practice of live audio-visual presentations. Australian and German video/media artists and musicians investigate the improvisational exchange of image, sound and space. They bring new methods of articulation and aesthetic understanding of the narrative and abstract processes of visualization together with improvised and experimental musical forms. An important component is the way in which the musicians sculpt the space with the parameters of performance through multi-channel diffusion or the positioning of performers in space to create a powerful listening experience. The project presents five groups of artists who have developed works for the small water reservoir:
(See also October 4 in the Ballhaus Naunynstraße)


Jan Jacob Hofmann electronics, live surround electronics Dominic Redfern live video 

The sounds, forms, movement, colors, surfaces and materials of the water reservoir will be assigned to their respective media and used for a communal creation: Jan Jacob Hofmann works with the sound spatialization method Ambisonic which allows for a precise localization of the most varied of sound materials in space, regardless of the position of the loudspeakers. Starting point for the piece is the space and its reverberation time of up to 12 seconds. Rhythmic impulses are introduced deep into the space from different directions, acoustically surveying the space. The natural echo of the space enters into a dialog with the synthetically produced sound material, which was modulated from the reverb information of the space in advance. The echo of the space complements the rhythms of the electronic composition. Dominic Redfern works with video material that he recorded on site. Content and meaning of the visual and sonic material emerge again transformed in the other medium.


Michael Vorfeld (percussion), Reinhold Friedl (inside piano), Philip Samartzis (live electronics, surround sound mix) Lillevän (Video)

The duo Reinhold Friedl/Michael Vorfeld meets Philip Samartzis, electronic musician from Melbourne, to play at the water reservoir together. Lillevän, who has already collaborated with Friedl and his ensemble Zeitkratzer in a variety of contexts will provide the visuals. A minimalist but extremely sensual audio/visual event! It goes without saying that surround sound as well as surround video are part of the game.

Marc Behrens (electronics, live surround electronic), Philip Brophy (live electronics, surround sound mix), Springer ׀ Parker – Ex Candela 2 (live video)

Inspired by Pierre Henry, these artists pose the question of silence in sound, the black pause in the image and their interaction. A method of creating focus is the spatialization of sound image projection. A ping pong between the musicians and video artists permits combinations from solo to ensemble performance of all participants, symmetrically and asymmetrically. The performance is divided into non-linearly arranged blocks whose individual improvised parts are sometimes integrated into the sound, sometimes only into the image. 

September 23, 2006
8 pm 
Immersion 4 Germany/Australia Part II – Audio/visual live performances

Philip Brophy live electronics, surround sound mix Philip Samartzis live electronics, surround sound mix Dominic Redfern live video

HEAT tours the Australian landscape’s broken heart via live audio/visual corrosions of its romantic status. The three artists stretch and collapse the correspondence of sound and image to draq out the contaminants that lie beneath the terrain’s troubled surface, collapsing Australia’s wide brown land into a series of close and breathless moments. Combining field recordings, live video, percussion and gritty electronics, HEAT abstracts and aetheticizes problematic elements of the Austalian ecology in poetic renderings of movement and stasis. The artists are interested in the two-dimensionality of images and the three-dimensionality of sounds. Dominic Redfern is one of Australia’s leading video artists.  He improvises with image material in relation to the sounds provided by the musicians, edits, mixes and transforms them with special effects. He takes over the formal and structural ideas of the music and integrates them into his live video improvisation. The sounds and images are transformed and distributed throughout the space in such a way that they transmit an illusion of reality to the visitor, breaking through the impression that they might be sitting in a movie theatre. What happens if the hierarchy between sound and image falls away and all elements become equal?

Kirsten Reese sound, electronics, Dominik Busch visuals
Abglanz for mobile lamp and loudspeaker, Musterfolien, 4 channel audio

Abglanz refers to the space and the symmetric forms of the water reservoir. Patterns were derived from the six-sided ground plan which form the basis for the visual and acoustic patterns of the performance. “Media without media” is the concept that the visual level follows: network-like structures are projected and superimposed onto the walls of the water reservoir from a light source – without using a video or slide projector. On the acoustic level, patterns are created from multifarious noise sounds which are likewise derived from the visual patterns. These are projected into the space with a mobile loudspeaker. Interferences arise from the reflections in the space and the superimposition of sounds that are projected from the fixed loudspeakers. As on the visual level, sound movement is created through the movement of the performer, the sound and light sources and, last but not least, the movement of the public.


September 24, 2006
8 p.m. (See also Sept. 19 Ballhaus Naunynstraße)
Christoph Winkler – We are time – (Germany)
Dance work by Christoph Winkler (one-time “site-specific adaption for the Wasserspeicher)
Four Violins by Tony Conrad, Zufit Simon (Israel, Dance)

Charles Curtis (USA) (See also Oct. 2 Ballhaus Naunynstraße)
Eliane Radigue Naldjorlak (2005) for cello solo

Created in close collaboration with Charles Curtis, Naldjorlak is the first entirely acoustic composition by a composer who has pioneered pure electronic sound for over thirty years. Delicate, yet dense and highly diffuse sonorities are seamlessly interwoven in a three-part structure, mirroring the geography of the cello. The hidden untamed Ur-sonority of the cello is revealed in all its sonic complexity and fragility. The Tibetan title refers to the motion of all life toward unity. Qualities of intense focus, concentration and spirituality, landmarks in all of Radigue's work, are transferred from the composer's electronic studio to the concert stage.  
French composer Eliane Radigue has pioneered pure analog synthesis since the late fifties. Working with analog tape and a custom ARP synthesizer, she has created a unique body of work described by the New York Times as "a steady stream of sonic activity taking place right at the edge of one's perception". For decades she has been a kind of underground luminary, and in recent years her work has exercised a decisive influence on a younger generation of musicians working with electronics within a minimalist aesthetic.


September 26, 2006
8 pm 
Rendezvous ZEBRA: Poetry Meets Film

At the nexus of poetry and film: The poetry film combines the image worlds of cinema with the linguistic condensation of poetry. The best ZEBRA poetry films of the world will be projected – a preview of the 3rd ZEBRA Poetry Film Award in October 2006. The ZEBRA has established itself as the largest forum for the international poetry film and gives filmmakers the world over the opportunity to exchange ideas and define directions. The festival provides a platform for a dynamic short film genre that has developed between literature, film and new media to an independent art form. Various special programs, an international colloquium and a comprehensive retrospective supplement the 3rd ZEBRA Poetry Film Award.

A project of the literaturWerkstatt Berlin. www.literaturwerkstatt.org


September 28, 2006
8 pm
Jean-Francois Laporte and Martin Ouellet – Khôra und FlyingCan Duo (Canada, Québec)
Concert installation with self-constructed instruments

Parallel to his compositional activities, Jean François Laporte is dedicated to the discovery and development of “primitive” musical instruments, builds sound installations and experiments with the possibilities of chance, experimental and improvised music. 
 “Khôra”:area surrounding an agglomeration; indeterminate space as opposed to man-organized space. Scattered across the site, the vibrations of twenty or so invented instruments bathe the public in their movements. The Tu-Yo, Bowl, Flying Can, Sax-trunk and Siren Organ are all born of an extremely simple assemblage of basic materials, bringing the art of sound back to its genesis, freed of the weight of traditional instruments and of the music associated with them. Unaltered sounds of surprising depth, unamplified and unprocessed “hyper-real” character that borders on the unreal. No speakers or microphones are hidden behind the vibrating membranes of the instruments. The instruments create music from mass and movement, based on the fluctuating evolution of similar timbres organizing themselves by accumulation and proliferation, fostering the birth of an extremely organic sound universe for which the water reservoir provides the ideal place to expand. 












September 29, 2006
8 pm
Ensemble Zwischentöne (Germany) – Breaking Barriers!
Dorothee Sporbeck, Natalia Pschenitschnikova, flutes; Kristina Lösche-Löwensen, violin; Augustin Maurs, violoncello; Volker Schindel, Helles Weber, accordion; Kurt König, percussion; Chiyoko Szlavnics, sinus tones

Alvin Lucier Heavier Than Air for 4 speakers, balloons, CO2
Peter Ablinger / Weiss/weisslich 22 / electronics
Christina Kubisch Akustische Vermessungen for 4 Actors, stones, vases, electronics
Nader Mashayekhi 0 + eine Nacht for flute, accordion, percussion, violoncello
Chiyoko Szlavnics Reservoir for 7 instruments and sinus tones with live video by Els van Riel

The Ensemble Zwischentöne established itself through a repertoire of pieces created since the beginning of the sixties in which unusual instruments, locations, performance practices or forms of notation were the focus of investigation. With the performance series Breaking Barriers! Verify! Activate!, the ensemble puts into question the myth of the concert audience. What is a concert? What is an audience? What does “communication” mean in music? One concert from this series will be presented during this festival. The pieces chosen correspond almost perfectly to the spatial circumstances, in this case, the small water reservoir. Chiyoko Szlavnics’ 30 minute piece is based on a series of drawings which create aural bundles of critical bands, concentrated in different areas of the complex acoustical space of the Wasserspeicher. The audience sits in the center, surrounded by sound, which moves as water once might have moved in this space. The music reveals the acoustic resonance of the space as the full spectrum of frequencies moves through the Wasserspeicher over the course of 30 minutes. Acoustic instruments and sine tones fuse with one another to create shimmering waves of beating, highlighted by the individual instruments’ timbres, and paralleled in the live-video exploration of the space, which is projected back into the space by Belgian artist Els van Riel.




September 30, 2006
8 p.m. (See also October 2 in Ballhaus Naunynstraße)
Quatuor Bozzini (Canada, Québec)

Martin Arnold Aberrare (casting) premier of a new version
Malcolm Goldstein A New Song Of Many Faces For In These Times 
Marc Sabat Beautiful City (1994) 
Jean Francois Laporte Quatuor #2 (in collaboration with Quatuor Bozzini)



INTERFACE 
festival for music and related arts
15.9.-7.10.2006
Ballhaus Naunynstraße + Wasserspeicher (Reservoir)
www.interface-festival.de
______________________________________ 
Elke Moltrecht
Künstlerische Leiterin
Artistic Director
Ballhaus Naunynstraße
Naunynstraße 27
10997 Berlin
phone: +49 (0)30 3474 598 46
fax: +49 (0)30 3474 598 55
moltrecht at ballhausnaunyn.de
www.ballhausnaunyn.de