PRESS RELEASE
10 January 2016
CTM 2016 EXHIBITION
SEISMOGRAPHIC SOUNDS
VISIONS OF A NEW WORLD
CURATED BY NORIENT WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CTM, AND INCLUDING WORKS BY
PEDRO REYES, TIANZHUO CHEN, RAED YASSIN, SVETLANA MARAŠ, URS HOFER, AND
HANDS ON SOUND
OPENING: 29.01.2016, 19H
EXHIBITION RUNS 30.01–20.03.2016, DAILY 11–20H, DURING CTM (30.1.–7.2.2016) 11–22H
KUNSTRAUM KREUZBERG/BETHANIEN, MARIANNENPLATZ 2, 10997 BERLIN
The 17th edition of CTM Festival examines today’s rapidly collapsing borders and
emerging new hybrid topographies through its New Geographies theme, as well as
the tensions and essentialist backlashes that arise as a response to today’s
increasingly hybrid world. The festival’s programme of concerts, performances,
discourse, and more, is complemented by a special edition of the “Seismographic
Sounds. Visions of a New World” exhibition, curated by Norient — the International
Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture. For the exhibition’s
presentation within CTM 2016, Norient and CTM curated additional works by Pedro
Reyes, Tianzhuo Chen, and Svetlana Maraš.
“Seismographic Sounds. Visions of a New World” is a multi-authored exhibition assembling distinct
music, sound art and videos created, compiled and commented by 250 artists, musicians, academics
and bloggers from 50 countries. Often produced in small studios from Jakarta to La Paz, Cape Town
to Helsinki, these works experiment with the possibilities of the internet age and illuminate new spaces
beyond the confines of commercialism, propaganda, and bigotry. Countering pessimistic views that
globalisation and digitisation have led to cultural uniformity, they foresee a changing geography of
multi-layered modernities, far beyond old ideas of North versus South, West versus East.
A division of DISK / CTM – Baurhenn, Rohlf, Schuurbiers GbR • Veteranenstraße 21, 10119 Berlin, Germany
Tax Number 34/496/01492 • International VAT Number DE813561158
Bank Account: Berliner Sparkasse • BLZ: 10050000 • KTO: 636 24 508 • IBAN: De42 1005 0000 0063 6245 08 • BIC: BE LA DE BE
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By diving into six topics — Money, Loneliness, War, Belonging, Exotica and Desire — visitors explore
the exhibition as an audio-visual composition filled with music videos with subversive sounds and
messages; experimental podcasts from local artists and journalists; a three-channel round table
installation hosting controversial discussions between journalists, bloggers, artists and academics; and
numerous other sound and video installations, experimental audio mixtapes and remixes.
While a seismograph measures and records force and duration of earthquakes, with “Seismographic
Sounds”, Norient aims to measure visions of a new world. In keeping with this mandate, all exhibition
content comes from multiple perspectives of musicians, authors, journalists and photographers from
all over the world.
Partners for the CTM 2016 exhibition include curators Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter and Hannes
Liechti, scenographers Julien McHardy, Nils Volkmann, and Carlotta Werner, media planners and
acoustic scenographers Jan Paul Herzer and Max Kullmann (hands on sound), Nicolai Wienzoschek,
and graphic designers Annegreth Schärli and Marius Rehmet (Vojd).
Complementing the exhibition, the CTM 2016 Discourse programme of talks, panels, music diffusions,
film screenings and more is curated in close collaboration with Norient. The Discourse programme will
present a range of “Seismographic Sounds” contributors. Sarah Abunama-Elgadi, Meira Asher, FOKN
Bois, Wendy Hsu, Adam Harper, Chris Saunders, and many more discuss ethical borders when
working with local sounds, postcolonialism and new strategies of researching music today.
»Here, exhibiting the internet, succeeds surprisingly well.«
Ina Plodroch, Deutschlandfunk, Corso (Germany)
»It’s a high demand, as the exhibition wants nothing less than to detect visions of a new world.
However, the feat succeeded, thanks to unrestrained curiosity and a network with a
programmatic name: Norient.«
Kaspar Suber, Die Wochenzeitung (Switzerland)
“SEISMOGRAPHIC SOUNDS“ PUBLICATION
The exhibition’s namesake book, titled “Seismographic Sounds. Visions of a New World” (Norient
Books, 504 pages) invites readers to experience and discuss the project and network from even more
different angles. The second publication from Norient, edited by the exhibition’s curators Theresa
Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter, and Hannes Liechti, offers a collage of articles, interviews, quotations,
photographs and lyrics around international niche genres, parodies on exotica, and post-digital forms
of protest. The multiple perspectives gathered within its pages hint that the mainstream hits and
underground trends of the future will come from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
More Information: http://book2015.norient.com
»This is a remarkable book. It is brilliantly messy, complex and compelling, just like the
diversity of global musical life it celebrates and interrogates in fact.«
Tony Herrington, The Wire
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NORIENT – NETWORK FOR LOCAL AND GLOBAL SOUNDS
AND MEDIA CULTURE
Founded in 2002 by Thomas Burkhalter, Norient searches for new music, sounds and noises from
around the planet. The Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture is based in Bern
(Switzerland), and discusses current issues critically, from different perspectives, close to musicians
and their networks. Through the Norient Online Magazine, the Norient Musikfilm Festival,
performances, books, documentary films, traveling exhibitions and radio programs Norient hopes to
orient and disorient readers, listeners and spectators and present to them strong, fragile and
challenging artistic positions in today’s fast moving and globalized, digitized and urbanized world.
More Information: www.norient.com
DJ Invisible, photo Chris Saunders.
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SELECTED WORKS
Pedro Reyes [MX] – “Disarm (Mechanized), 2013”
Installation comprising six mechanized instruments, recycled metal, dimensions variable. Courtesy, the artist and Lisson
Gallery.
Mexican artist Pedro Reyes’s work is a socio-political critique on contemporary society and our
responsibility towards it. His large-scale projects are catalysts for communal and psychological
transformation, triggering group interaction and creativity.
Disarm (Mechanized) relates to two of Reyes's previous projects: Palas por Pistolas (2007) in which
citizens of the Mexican state of Sinaloa donated a total of 1,527 weapons through a campaign, which
were then turned into 1,527 shovels to plant 1,527 trees; and Disarm (2012), in which seized and
subsequently destroyed firearms were used to fabricate musical instruments. Disarm (Mechanized)
2013 comprises six mechanized musical instruments, created in collaboration with Mexico City-based
media workshop COCOLAB. Fabricated from parts of revolvers, shotguns, and machine-guns, these
instruments intermittently play in the exhibition space as musical automatons.
A large part of today’s world politics has been hijacked by the weapons industry, fuelling conflict
around the world for the sole purpose of profit. Most of the time, the blame goes to whoever pulls the
trigger, while the companies that manufacture these weapons and the political states that sell them
somehow manage to escape proper scrutiny. Disarm is a project that hopes to remind us that living in
an environment free of weapons ought to be a human right, and that it is within our means to
transform agents of death into instruments of life. If we can turn a weapon into a musical instrument,
hopefully, that physical transformation could lead to a psychological and social transformation.
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Tianzhuo Chen [CN] – “19:53, 2015” and “Scapegoat 02”, 2016
“19:53” — feat Yico, Beio. Single channel HD video. “Scapegoat” — object on pillars.
A rising star in the art world, Beijing-based Tianzhuo Chen skillfully works between the artistic
disciplines of installation, performance, video, drawing and photography. Chen’s first solo exhibition
was presented at Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2015 and featured performances with artist and dancer
Beio, who co-wrote the script for “19:53", the first of two of Chen’s work presented within
“Seismographic Sounds” at CTM 2016. In this dreamy, grotesque and kitschy video work, Chen
reimagines tradition by mixing ceremonies and symbols found in religion, fashion, LGBT, BDSM,
voguing, rave, and other global subcultures in order to transcend body and spirit. Supported by music
from Yico, the video searches for a “state of madness” and celebrates a new mythology by carefully
choreographing burlesque creatures obsessed with hedonism.
With “Scapegoat 02”, Chen translates musical rituals into art by arranging costumes, masks and
objects from his performance within CTM Festival’s nighttime music programme, as holy relics. What
once was part of a crazy and loud performance, in the end remains a silent sculpture charged with the
aura of a mythical past.
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Raed Yassin [LB] – “The Stinky Singer / The Sultan of Tarab”, 2015
Taxidermy animal, neon, sound. Courtesy of the artist and Kalfayan Galleries.
Raed Yassin’s “The Stinky Singer / The Sultan of Tarab” is an allegorical work about the life of pop
stars who’ve briefly had their moment in the limelight, but have long since seen their star fade and
disappear. Once free spirits, these now lone singers never managed to figure out the ropes of staying
successful in the music industry. The mummified skunk or “Stinky Singer” represents one such star.
The animal sings his unique story through an Arabic "Mawwal" (lamentation) song, remembering his
former shining self as his coarse exhausted voice reflects his current miserable status. "Stinky Singer"
is the first of a series that explores the variations of these faded pop star characters.
Beirut-based Raed Yassin's work often originates from an examination of his personal narratives and
their workings within a collective history, through the lens of consumer culture and mass production.
He has exhibited and performed his work in numerous museums, festivals and venues across Europe,
the Middle East, the United States and Japan. Yassin is one of the organizers of IRTIJAL Festival, has
released several music albums including as one half of Praed, and founded the production company
Annihaya in 2009.
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Svetlana Maraš [RS] – “Matter of Fact”, 2016
Stereo sound, video, 3D printed controller/ interface. Svetlana Maraš (music, concept design), Valentina Brković (graphic
design), Deana Petrović (motion graphics), Polyhedra Fab Lab (interface).
Serbian composer and sound artist Svetlana Maraš works at the intersection of experimental music,
sound art and new media. “Matter of Fact” is an eclectic cut-up composition where Maraš uses her
interest in the relationship between text and music as a starting point. Rather than attempting to set
words to music, she uses text as the structural element, or building blocks, devoid of its original
context or meaning. In an immersive jukebox or dismantled karaoke space she plays short clips and
pieces created from materials provided by Norient (artist interviews, performances) as well as original
material by the artist.
By inserting a keyword into the installation, visitors trigger associated clips that re-contextualise the
word in relation to the kaleidoscope of artists, perspectives, cultures and styles represented within the
“Seismographic Sounds” exhibition. Detached from their original source, these words and clips
become meaningless or take on new meanings when combined with other clips to produce new
dialogue, turning into general statements that belong to “no one”. Just like a horoscope prediction,
they can point us to a new realisation … or (humorously) miss the point entirely.
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Urs Hofer [CH] – “Stereo Types”, 2015
Installation, 2015.
Banknotes and supermarkets, weapons, masks, naked bodies, archival footage, and lonely people —
these are some of the recurring topics and visual motifs spanning some 2,000 music and video clips
from 70 countries Norient received from its network. 26 of them are the heart of the “Seismographic
Sounds” exhibition. Swiss media artist Urs Hofer took on the rest, creating “Stereo Types”. In his
installation, Hofer uses an algorithm to detect thematic and formal relations between the clips,
generating an endlessly moving and changing audiovisual experience. The machine becomes the
curator, and, by stepping onto a highlighted spot to change the track, the audience becomes the
selector.
Urs Hofer holds a M.A. in media-, film- and computer science from the University of Zurich. His works
center on collaborations with graphic designers or artists, focusing on combining computer
technologies with other arts, design or literature. He has received numerous grants and held several
residencies, and his installations and performances have been shown at Ars Electronica, the Bauhaus
Dessau, ZKM and various theatres in Germany and Switzerland.
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hands on sound & Norient [DE/CH] – “Parabols”, 2015
Installation, 2015
Satellite dishes sit everywhere, on the balconies and rooftops of people who invite the whole world
into their homes. They supply entertainment, and both new and old information. These dishes clutter
many cityscapes, including the area around Kottbusser Tor in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Many immigrants
have called this area home since the 1970s. The buildings they inhabit seem to have appeared all at
once, all within one architectural style, and are covered by the space-like antennas shooting out of
almost every balcony. What do these city dwellers feel and hear? Do they take notice of the bustling
Kottbusser Tor square below, the here and now? Or are they busy listening to and imagining other
cities, other countries?
The satellite dish does not just receive, it can also send-out information. With “Parabols”, the Berlinbased duo hands on sound use a series of antennas to gather and broadcast art, sound clips, and
field recordings found within the Norient Network’s vast archive, into the exhibition space.
Founded in 2009 in Berlin by architect Max Kullmann and sound designer Jan Paul Herzer, hands on
sound develops projects for curators, scenographers, and architects, while also creating their own
artistic works. Sound is their tool, and architecture their medium, to program acoustic spaces, and also
to leave voids in their design.
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CTM 2016 – NEW GEOGRAPHIES
FESTIVAL FOR ADVENTUROUS MUSIC & ART
29 JANUARY – 7 FEBRUARY 2016, BERLIN
From 29 January – 7 February 2016, CTM 2016 returns to its previously established constellation of a
range of Berlin’s most exciting nightlife and cultural venues, including HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berghain,
Yaam, and Astra. The 17th edition’s New Geographies theme examines today’s rapidly collapsing
borders and emerging new hybrid topographies, aiming to provide the tools needed to approach the
complexities of a polycentric, polychromatic, and increasingly hybrid (music) world with greater
openness. Special projects and commissions, as well as artists and sound cultures emanating from
less familiar countries and localities and often operating on the fringes of the electronic circuit are
featured in greater numbers than ever before.
With:
PAULINE OLIVEROS W IONE
FLOATING POINTS LIVE
HATSUNE MIKU
KEIJI HAINO
LE1F
OG MACO
GESLOTEN CIRKEL
ESPLENDOR GEOMETRICO
RØDHÅD 2B2 ATEQ
MUMDANCE
STEPHEN O’MALLEY
FIS & ROB THORNE
VINCENT MOON
RABIT
LENA WILLIKENS
NIDIA MINAJ
HONEY DIJON
NIGHT LOVELL
JERUSALEM IN MY HEART
MIKAEL SEIFU
AÏSHA DEVI FEAT. TIANZHOU CHEN & BEIO
ABDEL KARIM SHAAR AND BAND
ANA HOMLER & STEVEN WARWICK: BREADWOMAN
TARA TRANSITORY AKA ONE MAN NATION
ROBERT HENKE & CHRISTOPHER BAUDER: DEEP WEB
N.A.A.F.I. FEAT PAUL MARMOTA & ZUTZUT
IANCU DUMITRESCU & ANA-MARIA AVRAM and many more ...
RABIH BEAINI
SENYAWA
JLIN
LAUREL HALO
VISIONIST
PEDER MANNERFELT
KASSEM MOSSE
MAURICE LOUCA
POLE & MFO
GROUP A
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SPECIAL PROJECTS AT CTM 2016
»DEEP WEB«
KINETIC AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATION AND PERFORMANCE BY CHRISTOPHER BAUDER
AND ROBERT HENKE. PRESENTED WITHIN CTM FESTIVAL 2016 IN COLLABORATION WITH
KRAFTWERK BERLIN
Installation: 2 – 7 February 2016, daily 15–21h
Performance: 7 February 2016, 19h
Deep Web is a monumental immersive audiovisual art installation and live performance created by
light artist Christopher Bauder and composer and musician Robert Henke. Sublimating the spectacular
industrial architecture of the Kraftwerk Berlin, Deep Web plunges the audience into a ballet of
iridescent kinetic light and surround sound music. The work will be presented daily within CTM 2016
Festival in installation form, culminating with a performance on Sunday 7 February.
»RITUALS«
FILM INSTALLATION BY VINCENT MOON
Opening: 30.1.2016, 19h
Runs: 31.1.–7.2., daily 15–22h
Commissioned by CTM, Vincent Moon's multi-screen film installation "Rituals" will enlace themes of
timeworn trance rituals and the sacred in modern life into a synthesis of new findings.
Vincent Moon is a wanderer, independent filmmaker and sound researcher devoted to the exploration
of global music-making practices, from experiments in electronic music to local sacred rituals involving
or centred on sound. Sufism in Chechnya or Ethiopia, Ayahuasca rituals in Peru, trance in Brazil,
Jathilan in Indonesia and Len Dong in Vietnam — the broadness of Moon’s work has relied for
decades on his own travels and experiences rather than on academics, and allows for thematic
connections across eras and worlds.
»STILL BE HERE«
A PERFORMANCE / INSTALLATION WITH HATSUNE MIKU.
INITIATED BY MARI MATSUTOYA IN COLLABORATION WITH LAUREL HALO,
DARREN JOHNSTON, LATURBO AVEDON, & MARTIN SULZER
5 & 6 February 2016, 21h30 At Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt
Commissioned by CTM Festival and transmediale for their joint 2016 editions, Still Be Here is a unique
collaborative performance that draws us into the multiplying realities of a 21st Century pop star, and
traces the dynamics at play between fans, corporations and social desires. Since her 2007 launch in
Japan, Hatsune Miku has become the ultimate pop star, developed from a vocal synthesizer product
into a globally adored and collaboratively constructed cyber celebrity with a growing user community,
countless stadium performances as a virtual 3D projection and more than 100 000 songs released
worldwide. Still Be Here explores Hatsune Miku as the crystallisation of collective desires, embodied in
the form of a teal-haired virtual idol, forever 16.
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»AN EVENING WITH ABDEL KARIM SHAAR & BAND«
A SPECIAL VARIETE CONCERT
1 February 2016, 20h at Heimathafen Neukölln
On invitation by guest curator Rabih Beaini, legendary Lebanese singer Abdel Karim Shaar appears in
an especially memorable evening. Like the masterful Umm Kulthum, a legendary Egyptian songwriter,
singer, and actress, Shaar is closely linked to the traditional concept of tarab, which describes music’s
evocation of emotional catharsis. On February 1st, the antique ballroom Heimathafen Neukölln will
host a special variété concert in the style of one of Shaar’s classic performances at Beirut’s Metro AlMadina theatre. The singer will be accompanied by his band of oud, qanon, violin and riq players.
Full programme at www.ctm-festival.de
TICKETS, FESTIVAL PASSES, AND PRESS ACCREDITATION
The access to the CTM 2016 exhibition is free.
Festival passes and tickets to other festival events are available via the festival’s ticketshop.
Press accreditation is open until 7 January 2016 via the festival’s press office.
PRESS CONTACT
FESTIVAL CONTACT
Guido Möbius
› [email protected]
› +49 (0) 30 29002161
CTM Festival
Veteranenstr 21, 10119 Berlin
› [email protected]
› +49 (0)30 4404 1852
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SEISMOGRAPHIC SOUNDS – PARTNERS & FUNDERS
A project by
DISK/CTM | Norient
Funded by
Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Supported by
Embassy of Mexico
In co-operation with
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien | DAAD – German Academic Exchange Service
Deutschlandradio Kultur / Hörspiel – Klangkunst
Humboldt University’s Chair of Trans-cultural Musicology
Media partners:
NTS Radio | The Wire | Crack | Resident Advisor | RBMA Radio | Groove | XLR8R | Noisey
Deutschlandradio Kultur | The Quietus | Die Tageszeitung | Radio eins | The Gap
Ask Helmut | Jungle World | Berliner Fenster
Seismographic Sounds Pre-Production Partners
Pro Helvetia | Migros Kulturprozent | Schweizer Nationalfonds | Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation | srks/fsrc Stiftung für Radio und Kultur Schweiz
Swisslos Kultur Kanton Bern | Kultur Stadt Bern | Burgergemeinde Bern
Jubiläumsstiftung der Schweizerischen Mobiliar Genossenschaft | Bürgi-Willert-Stiftung
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