For the second of our four module event series, artists and audiences are invited to listen-with places in which nature has re-appropriated the built environment of Berlin. This idea references the writings of Gilles Clément, and his notion of the third landscape. As Clément argues, third landscapes are those “unattended by man and ruled over by natural evolution”. Under this environmental premise, participating artists Ela Spalding, KMRU and Carla Boregas have been asked to think of Berlin through a geological perspective, from swamp to city, from forest to parks, from glacier to concrete. The workshop and performances will be held at The Rathausblock in Kreuzberg, a site rich in emergent forms of natural growth and with differing histories, which will allow for greater consideration of urban wastelands.
To open the Swamps and Stars weekend event, a first evening of performances will take place at Errant Sound project space in Mitte. Featuring the artists Jason Kahn (Zürich) and Peter Strickmann (Berlin), whose sonic works probe the feral through the activation of raw matters and brute vocalizations, the evening will tune our ears to the untamed. The evening also includes an introductory lecture performance by artist Brandon LaBelle, on the topic of Wild Listening.
Summer:
on feral landscapes
July 28 & 29, 2023
Location: Errant Sound & Rathausblock, Kreuzberg
Contributors: Jason Kahn and Peter Strickmann, Brandon LaBelle, Ela Spalding in collaboration with Bündnis Feuer und Flamme, KMRU, Carla Boregas
Friday July 28
Location: Errant Sound, Rungestrasse 20, 10179 Berlin
19:00–22:00
Jason Kahn – performance
Days Falling (voice, acoustic guitar)
One could place Jason Kahn’s vocal and guitar work somewhere in the realm of Derek Bailey’s abstract improvisational excursions and Henri Chopin’s existential vocal bricolage. As an untrained vocalist and guitar player, Kahn approaches these disciplines more as a noise musician would work with effects pedals and failing electronic objects, searching for the sounds between sounds, broken vibrations, collapsing structures. In the end inhabiting a primal space of disintegrating voice and steel strings haunting.
Born 1960 in New York, Jason Kahn is a artist, musician and writer. He lives in Zürich. Kahn has presented his installations and public-space interventions internationally. These works focus on the idea of space: the conceptual and physical juncture points, its production and dissolution, and our relation to it as a political, social and environmental medium. As an electronic musician, guitarist, vocalist and percussionist Kahn performs as soloist and collaborates with others in the context of free improvised music. He has also composed numerous electroacoustic pieces and graphical scores. His work can be heard on over two hundred releases. Kahn’s written work has appeared in books, magazines and as liner notes to audio publications. His other activities include sound pieces for radio, film, dance and theater. Various art schools have invited Kahn to give talks and workshops, including the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, École Supérieure d ́Art de Mulhouse, Cal Arts and Huddersfield University.
Peter Strickmann – performance
weights(stones, objects, feedback)
weights is a performance in which acoustic feedback and unavoidable performative gesture are manipulated and troubled by the weight, the materiality and some invisible parts of selected stones and found objects.
Peter Strickmann is a Berlin based soundartrist and performer. Through the use of radically simple and sparse means, he aims to reveal and reward the multiple listening habits that evolve from daily routine and sudden surprise. While observing and animating the vibrant „Ding“ and its social, acoustic and theatrical feedback he enables shared listening environments in exhibitions and performances. He aswell organizes events, runs a Schnarcharchiv, performs collectively, appeared on festivals like audiograft (UK), Seanaps (D), Delta Wave (BE), Sans Titre (F) and published his solo and group-sounds on labels like Ana Ott, Rayon, meudiademorte, Stenze Quo, econore, SPAM and Dazy&Holy.
Brandon LaBelle – performance lecture
The Hidden Sphere (performative reading)
Exploring the idea of the feral and the wild, the artist will give a performative reading of a series of short texts, each of which speaks to the vague social worlds of the hidden sphere.
Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer and theorist living in Berlin. His work focuses on questions of agency, community, and poetics, which results in a range of collaborative and extra-institutional initiatives, including The Listening Biennial and Academy.
Saturday July 29
Location: Rathausblock Kreuzberg
13:00–22:00
Suelo Field Session with Ela Spalding – workshop
In this SUELO Field Session, participants are invited to use their hands and senses to connect with the past, present and possible futures of the Dragonerareal a.k.a Rathausblock Kreuzberg – a contested urban space in Berlin. Join us to make memories and capture impressions of multiple stories through clay, fire and food.
Ela Spalding is an artist~facilitator exploring the ecotones between fields of knowledge, using art as a conduit to practice and convey notions of ecology and interconnectedness. Her work focuses on sound, wellbeing and nature’s processes to invite listening and resonance within and without. As founder and director of Estudio Nuboso, a platform for art and ecology based in Panama, she’s currently developing the Suelo Methodology as a field guide for people to connect with the places we inhabit.
Sound Work by KMRU
Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, is a Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist whose work is grounded on the discourse of field recording, noise, and sound art. His work posits expanded listening cultures of sonic thoughts and sound practices, a proposition to consider and reflect on auditory cultures beyond the norms.
Performance by Carla Boregas
Carla Boregas is a Brazilian musician and sound artist. Carla builds sonic scenarios moved by an invisible force where the sensation of presence and discovery lies between intensity and subtleness. She works across composition, improvisation, performance and sound installation.
planetary listening 