26 Feb 2015

Extended Compositions: Exhibition and Concert in Berlin

7 – 29 March 2015
Exhibition at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Projektraum
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Gary Berger, William Engelen, Ellen Fellmann, Gregor Hildebrandt, Leo Hofmann, Hiromi Ishii, Barbara Kasten, Daniel Kurth, Carsten Nicolai, Hans Richter, Claudia Robles Angel & Paulo Ferreira Lopes, Fabian Rockenfeller, Stefan Roigk, Pascal Schärli, Antje Vowinckel & Steffi Weismann

15 March 2015, 8 pm
Concert at RADIALSYSTEM V
Holzmarktstraße 33, 10243 Berlin

Gary Berger, Ellen Fellmann, Babak Golestani, Leo Hofmann, Belia Winnewisser


The exhibition EXTENDED COMPOSITIONS looks at the web of relations between the fine arts and music in the structural interlinking of both media and makes a new and independent form of artistic practice visible, audible, and—tangible.

Looking at the creative interaction between musical and visual composition, the exhibition is inspired in particular by the work of artist Hans Richter, whose notions of counterpoint led him to transfer musical ideas into optical impressions and film, as well as by the legacy of Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. With his synaesthesia-inspired 'clavier à lumières,' the early twentieth century figure opened up music to the realm of visual art. The exhibition's range of artworks combine music and the fine arts in a decidedly non-hierarchical but closely interrelated audio-visual manner and reflect on the formal foundations of these two forms of art and their transgression.

Hans Richter can be seen as a central initiator of this young art form. In his 1921 film 'Rhythmus 21', he presents the rhythmic movement of geometrical shapes as 'visual music,' yet in the absence of an acoustic layer. Nonetheless the images create virtual sounds in the mind. Based on Richter's film, Daniel Kurth's video installation 'Back To The Future / Straight To The Past' (2010) manifests a new composition of the musical concept rendered in Richter's film.

In Fabian Rockenfeller's video installation 'Motion Study' (2010), the artist questions the reception of movement, image, and sound in film by overlaying a scene of a woman in front of a neutral white wall with a sound recording of a train in motion. Audio-visual contrasts and tensions resulting from a montage of sound and image are also the basis of the video works 'Arkadien unter Glas' (2013) by Pascal Schärli and 'False Friends' (2007) by Antje Vowinckel and Steffi Weismann.

Inspired by László Moholy-Nagy's 'Light-Space Modulator' (1922–1930), Barbara Kasten's video' Shadow=Light' (2010) is a kaleidoscopic composition of reflection and mirror images. Hiromi Ishii takes a similar approach in her video work 'REFRACTION' (2010)—a strongly reduced arrangement of movements of light and dark, in which the sound is provided by single notes played on a Japanese shakuhachi flute.

Movement as a structural intersection between image and music is also a central category in Ellen Fellmann's work 'Rot' (2007). As a result of an expanded process of composition with the moving image, temporal and spatial levels create form and engender a 'medial polyphony.'

Stefan Roigk's elements in 'Imaginary Soundscape No. 6' (2012) create a sculptural construct from an acoustic formal idiom, inspired by musical events, where the corporeal experience of the arranged pieces in space evokes imaginary notes, chords, sounds. In his installation 'Weiße Nacht hängt an den Bergen' (2009), Gregor Hildebrandt, by contrast, interprets a piece of music in purely sculptural terms as a remembered image. The magnetic tape—usually a memory location for sound—here takes the form of a visual musical score.

Another sense, that of touch, enters the exhibition in Leo Hofmann's work 'Muschelrauschen' (2011), in which loudspeakers emit sound and also caress the ear with puffs of wind. The way we whisper air in speech is thus imitated in an intimate tactile event.

EXTENDED COMPOSITIONS creates a sensually complementary—intersensual—combination of music and fine art and adds closer focus to an interdisciplinary discourse that to date has been characterised by a much broader and more diffuse discussion of sound art.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a concert evening at RADIALSYSTEM V will present the intermediary spaces between musical and visual composition. German premières by international artists comprise nearly the entirety of the program.


EXTENDED COMPOSITIONS is a project by Ellen Fellmann, presented by Kunstquartier Bethanien in conjunction with RADIALSYSTEM V, the Electronic Studio at the Technical University Berlin, and the Bern University of the Arts.
Supported by funds from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin. With the generous support of the Swiss art foundation Pro Helvetia.

Idea, Concept, Curator: Ellen Fellmann
Curatorial counsel: Harald Theiss

Press contact: Denhart v. Harling, dh@segeband.de, +49 179 4963497


Exhibition at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Projektraum
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Exhibition dates: 7 – 29 March 2015
Opening: 6 March 2015, 7 pm
Opening hours: daily, 12 noon to 7 pm
Entrance: free


Extended Compositions
Concert at RADIALSYSTEM V
Holzmarktstraße 33, 10243 Berlin
www.radialsystem.de

Date: 15 March 2015, 8 pm
Entrance: 18 euro, concessions 14 euro

Programme

Ellen Fellmann: 'Aderngeäst', 2004
Sound choreography / Electroacoustic 7-channel composition, 11'00''

Leo Hofmann: 'An die verehrte Körperschaft', 2012
Musical choreography, 5'00''
German première
Composition/performance: Leo Hofmann; voice: Gina Mattiello

Belia Winnewisser: 'alUFOol', 2013
Light sculpture made of 16 microwaves with electroacoustic 4-channel composition, 7'00''
German première

Babak Golestani: 'Metal Music', 2013
Electroacoustic composition, 7'34''
German première

Ellen Fellmann: 'Order of things', 2011
Composition for double bass, tape, and video projection, 8'30''
German première
Soloist: Arnulf Ballhorn

Gary Berger: 'ctrl+alt+delete', 2011
Composition for 3-channel video, live electronics, and saxophone; live version with performance, 45'00''
German première
Live electronics: Gary Berger; 3-channel video: Michel Weber; Saxophone: Patrick Stadler; Sound director: Andre Bartetzki