Translating Marie Brassard's "Me Talking to Myself in the Future"

Jan Rohlf has been assigned for the German translation of Marie Brassard's latest piece Me Talking to Myself in the Future, which premiered at Wiener Festwochen in May 2011. The piece will be published - like the other pieces of Marie Brassard, some of them also translated by Jan Rohlf -  by Theaterstückverlag, Munich.

THE ICAS SUITE - Networking Tomorrow's Art for an Unknown Future

Project with DISK - Initiative Bild & Ton and CTM Festival.

The CTM Festival co-founded the network ICAS - International Cities of Advanced Sound. In total, 30 organisations and festivals on 5 continents joined forces to (co-)create projects and foster discourse, and thereby promote artistic development at the interface of music, art, technology and society. During the second Berlin Music Week (7. - 10. September 2011) in the four-day ICAS SUITE, ICAS-member festivals from Europe and North and South America  present a selection of their work and the most exciting artists in their networks at various venues in Berlin. The ICAS SUITE’s broad musical spectrum reflects ICAS members’ open-ended approach to issues of form encompassing the whole panorama of contemporary and experimental music presently holding out on the fringes of forced marketability.

Networking Tomorrow’s Art for an Unknown Future is the title of a five-year project initiative dedicated to exploring diverse aspects of the future of musical culture, its social role and repercussions, which was launched by the European strand in the network (ECAS - European Cities of Advanced Sound), with funding from the European Commission’s Culture Programme. What is the status quo, which tools are of use in independent cultural production, which measures can be taken to promote self-empowerment, what have we learned to date, what should we leave behind, and what must we take with us into the future? These are only a few of the questions that the initiative seeks to pose - and possibly answer - by commissioning artistic work, convening interdisciplinary symposia, organising network encounters and workshops, and underscoring the lot with the latest in experimental music.

Participating festivals: CTM, Berlin, CynetArt, Dresden, Dis-Patch, Belgrade, Full Pull, Malmö, Insomnia, Tromsø, Les Siestes Electroniques, Toulouse, Mutek Argentina, Buenos Aires, Mutek Chile, Santiago De Chile, Mutek Mexico, Mexico City, Mutek, Montréal, Orf Musikprotokoll Im Steirischen Herbst, Graz, Riam, Marseille, Rokolectiv, Bucharest, Skanu Mesz, Riga, Sperm, Prague, TodaysArt, Den Haag & Brussels, Unsound, Krakow .

Not by Note: How to Score a Map?

Project by Sebastian Meissner (aka Klimek) and Serhat Karakayali, commissioned by ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst.

Note by Note seeks for new paths within artistic debates on the constitution of power, culture and identity. In its focus two regions: the Balkans and the Middle East in their relationship to Western Europe. Banja Luka - a city in Bosnia i Herzegovina where until recently religious and cultural affiliations became the object of violent conflicts - was the location for a 7 days artlab that brought together eight sound artists, musicians and composers from countries of the middle east and former yugoslavian republics. The task was to develop a describing the inter-relationship of those regions.

The exploratory process that took place within the artlab will now be transfered into a room installation at the Stadtmuseum Graz, Austria. The installation will be shown within the program of the musikprotokoll festival from 25. September till 10. October 2010.

Participants/contributors: Dror Feiler, Boikutt, Sharif Sehnaoui, Cynthia Zaven, Asmir Sabic, Manja Ristic, Premil Petrovic, Amir Husak, Jan Rohlf.

Organ concerts at ISEA 2010 RUHR

On invitation of ISEA 2010 RUHR - the International Symposium on Electronic Art, that takes place this August in various cities of the Ruhrgebiet - Jan Rohlf has contributed a couple of organ concerts to the festival's music program. Both, Charlemagne Palestine and Mudboy will perform new and specially composed pieces. Mudboy will play the (electro-acoustically modified) organ of the Konzerthaus Dortmund in a collaboration with Peter Schuette of Silk Flowers and USA Is A Monster on August 26. The composition is titled "Sweet Dreams Capricorn", and incoporates elements of the A Nightmare on Elm Street OST (Charles Bernstein). Charlemagne Palestine will perform his piece "A Schlingen Blängen of Mohair for Duisburg 8/2010" on the Seifert organ of St. Maximilian Church in Duisburg-Ruhrort in the evening of August 28.

More information and tickets on the ISEA webpage.

Instabilitäten - Experimente zwischen Sound und Image

Ania Mauruschat, journalist at radio station Bayern 2, in this edition of the "artmix.Gespräch"-series talks with Jan Rohlf about his work with CTM. Recorded on June 18, 2010. 30 minutes, in German, audio examples are unfortunately cut short as the station wants to save GEMA fees :).

> listen

A Necessary Suspension

Exhibition together with Michael Schultze at Visite Ma Tente. Opening on September 18, 2009, 19h. Runs till October 9, 2009. Address: Schwedenstrasse 18b, 13357 Berlin. Opening times: Saturday 16-19h, ans 24-27 September 16-19h.

Invasive Sound

Curatorial project for TodaysArt Festival, The Hague, the Netherlands on September 25 and 26, 2009.

Sonic events - noises, sounds, music -are not perceived by the ear alone. Their effect on the human body goes beyond even the stimulation of the other sensory organs. Acoustic vibrations transmit impulses that obtrude and invade the body and its tissues; they are not only processed on a conscious level, but can also provoke unconscious psychological and uncontrollable physiological reactions. "Invasive Sound" presents artists who make use of all these aspects in order to get close to the human body in disquieting ways. Their work is aimed directly at both physiological and culturally encoded perceptions of the body. The experiences they offer audiences engender both conflict and corporeal pleasure.

With Heartchamber Orchestra, Lucky Dragons, Lynn Pook & Julien Clauss, Jacob Kierkegaard, Jamie Drouin & Karl Kliem, Lucas Abela, Christof Migone, Daito Manabe, Artificiel, Kurt Hentschläger, Mark Bain and Mattin. The project is a collaboration of Musikprotokoll, Graz, TodaysArt and DISK/CTM.

Touch This  Sound

Curatorial project for Musikprotokoll, Graz, Austria, October 2009. The project is a cooperation between Musikprotokoll, TodaysArt and DISK/CTM and explores the human body as source and target of sound. With Jupitter X. Larsen & the Haters, Heartchamber Orchestra, Lucky Dragons, Jacob Kierkegaard. Musikprotokoll is a festival for contemporary music that takes place within the frame work of Steirischer Herbst.

> 20-5-2009

> generalpublic.de

Alle Herzen fliegen zu (Zeichnungen und Servietten plus Diverses)

Participation in the group exhibition at General Public, curated by Wolfgang Mayer and Cristina Gomez-Barrio. Other artists are: Ulrike Müller, Michael Mahalchick, Amy Sillman, Cristina Gomez Barrio, Catriona Shaw, Urania Fasoulidou, Wolfgang Mayer, Berthold Reiss, Anne Roessner. Takes place within a wall-painting all-over installation by Scott Harrison. Opening: Mai 20, 19:00, runs till June 7.

For a review of the show and pictures, see the Niche Blog.

Structures Node 1: Global Alchemy

Curatorial project for DISK/CTM. Two day program at Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin to explore raw sounds from unexpected corners of the world and to reflect on musical transformations induced by processes of globalization. Starting from the Sublime Frequencies label’s unique work, Structures Node 1: Global Alchemy looks at the socially transformative power of music in a continuous, globe-spanning process of exchange, amalgamation, imitation, theft and appropriation. At the core are two concerts by Omar Souleyman from Syria and Group Doueh from the Western Sahara, accompanied by a mini-symposium with films, lectures and discussions. Participants are a.o. Marcus Boon, Alan Bishop, Hisham Mayet, Mark Gergis, Johannes Theurer, Noureddine Ben Redjeb.

All details on the program and participants can be read at lenght here.

Audio recordings of the talks and concerts, press reviews and pictures, here.