Musikprotokoll 2013
im Steirischen Herbst03.10. - 06.10. + 12.10.2014 / Graz, Austria
With the 2 projects „sonic blue“ and „environmental auditors“ musikprotokoll was picking up the theme of Working Period 3 „Ubiquitous Art and Music. Art, Sound and the Everyday“. Exploring the omnipresence of music and art in everyday life also implies examining the relationship between culture and nature. Additionally there was the first public presentation of „metamusic“, a project by alien productions, who were the ECAS Artists in Residence of Working Period 2. „metamusic“ amongst others also reflects on the relationship between culture and nature. In the panel discussion „Kunst im Anthropozoikum“, moderated by Oliver Baurhenn, the relationship between culture and nature was discussed with alien productions, Angelica Castello and Winfried Ritsch.
Intro of musikprotokoll 2013
Venturing into the boundless expanse of conceivable universes of sound, ORF musikprotokoll explores as yet uncharted acoustic territories and life-forms. Parrots, for example. They are the receivers of the sounds created by the alien productions artist collective, in whose “metamusic” project they radically reconceive the relationship between art and nature: animals – not humans – have control of a sound sculpture at this year’s ORF musikptotokoll.Nature and artefact. Human and object. Art and body. Matter and virtual reality. Universe and ephemera. Heaven and earth. musikprotokoll as a fourty-five-year history of liaisons dangereuses. A number of bold first encounters will be orchestrated in 2013 once again including electronic musician and producer Patrick Pulsinger with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra: along with encounters in Graz of uncertain outcome, when the prize-winning work from the 5th Johann Joseph Fux opera composition competition premières in co-operation with the University of Music as part of musikprotokoll / extended on 12 October: “Asteroid 62” by Dimitri Kourliandskis, a theatrical composition revolving around the idea of metamorphosis.
The piece will be performed on the radio, on the Net and in the city of Graz: inside and out, up and down. Roaming the Schloßberg hill, exploring the tunnels below, with robots filling St. Andrä-Kirche with sound. Omnipresence of music. Multicontextuality of music. A theme which musikprotokoll explores together with the European festival network ECAS. But what exactly will happen in the spaceship of musical relationships remains to be seen. After all, contemporary art at musikprotokoll lives in dangerous liaisons.
Curated by: Elke Tschaikner (A), Susanna Niedermayr (A) and Christian Scheib (A)
ECAS supported events during the festival:
sonic blue03.10. - 06.10.2013
| Date | 03.10. - 06.10.2013 |
| Action | concert, installation, radio feature |
| Participants | composition, concept, line-up, mixing: Angelica Castello / underwater recordings: Heike Vester, Richie Herbst, Angelica Castello / field recordings in Norway: Angelica Castello, Richie Herbst / field recordings in Spitzbergen: Susanna Niedermayr / field recordings and other sounds: Urkuma / all other sounds and paetzold recorder: Angelica Castello / sound and mixing support: Alfred Reiter / record mastered by: Martin Siewert / record cover and paintings by: Ralf Tronstoner |
| Location | ORF KlangTheater Wien, Murinsel, Space04 |
| Sponsoring Partners | ORF / musikprotokoll, Ocean Sounds, Interstellar Records, SKE |
| mp13 magazine, pg. 10ff | |
| Online References |
radio feature ecas @ musikprotokoll Installation discussion: Kunst im Anthropozoikum Kunst im Anthropozoikum: Listen to Concert Listen to the radio feature online sonic blue on Angélica Castelló’s website sonic blue on Interstellar Records Ocean Sounds Interviews with Heike Vester and Sigurd Enge |
| Description |
It was clear from the start of the compositional process in February 2013 that “sonic blue” would be an essential piece in Angélica Castelló’s oeuvre. The 42-year-old composer, flutist and electronic sound designer from Mexico, who has been living in Vienna for several years now, embarked on an unusual journey with musikprotokoll co-curator Susanna Niedermayr. On the Lofoten archipelago, an island chain along Norway’s northern coastline, they met the biologist and bioacoustics researcher Heike Vester, who founded the organization Ocean Sounds in a fishing village named Henningsvær in 2005. Vester led Castelló and Niedermayr to the whales found in the waters around the Lofoten islands. The field recordings and sounds they collected on these boat trips provide the acoustic framework for “sonic blue”. Under the Banner of Environmental Protection Ocean Sounds is dedicated to the research of marine mammals and the protection of the marine environment. At the mouth of Vestfjord the oil industry continues to expand. During seismic surveys undertaken to find new oil and gas fields, underwater detonations of compressed air create shockwaves. The vibrations that are reflected back provide information to map the location, density, shape and composition of the rock layers, but they are also a massive intervention in the natural soundworld of aquatic life. Deep in Many Respects With “sonic blue”, the musician creates her own imaginary underwater world that immerses the audience into the great sea of sound produced by her subgreatbass recorder, Castelló’s main instrument. The composition process of this piece is an examination of the profound in yet another respect, for to Angélica Castelló the sea also symbolizes the subconscious. Susanna Niedermayr created a feature for “Hörbilder”, a series on the cultural radio station Ö1 which is run by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. The feature documents the unusual compositional process behind the piece that was premiered at musikprotokoll on October 6. In 2014, “Sonic Blue” won the Outstanding Artist Award – Interdisciplinarity from the Austrian Federal Ministry for the Arts and Culture. Beginning 2015 it was released on Vinyl at Interstellar Records. |
| Photos | shot by Richie Herbst, Angelica Castello, Susanna Niedermayr, Elisabeth Zimmermann and Martin Gross |
metamusic03.10. - 06.10.2013
| Date | 03.10. - 06.10.2013 |
| Action | Sound aviary for 5 Grey Parrots and concert / Instruments: Kasio, 2 Papageientheremine, Sonic Swing, Touch |
| Participants | parrots: Chica, Jago, Joki, Kasi, Rosi / alien productions (Breindl, Math, Sodomka): idea, artistic direction, instruments / Nadja Ziegler: zoological management / Iris Baldinger, Catarina Markovic-Güttner: animal husbandry / Susanna Niedermayr: project support, documentation / Norbert Schweizer: project support / Manfred Weiss, Gerd Thaller: construction (aviary) / Michael Reiter: construction (instruments) / Fränk Zimmer: producer musikprotokoll |
| Location | GrazMuseum |
| Sponsoring Partners | ORF / musikprotokoll, ARGE Papageienschutz |
| mp13 magazine, pg. 14ff | |
| Online References |
http://musikprotokoll.orf.at/en/node/4836 http://musikprotokoll.orf.at/en/ecas-musikprotokoll metamusic at alien production's website metamusic opening (german) metamusic installation (german) metamusic discussion (german) metamusic concert (german) metamusic blog on musikprotokoll's website metamusic on ORF Ö1 (german) radio features in ORF Ö1 Zeit-Ton (german) ARGE Papageienschutz listen to the discussion „Kunst im Anthropozoikum“ (german) |
| Description |
Since 1997, alien productions have, among other things, been questioning the anthropocentric world view in their projects based on communication and cooperation. Always seeing themselves as part of a system, they pan out spaces in which different intelligences interact: humans, machines, programs and more recently animals. metamusic is a project with and for the benefit of a group of African gray parrots. Since 2012 – in strict observation of animal welfare regulations and in close cooperation with zoologists and biologists from the ARGE Papageienschutz (Association for the Protection of Parrots Austria; APPA) – the artists have been investigating how the birds respond to acoustic stimuli by actively producing their own sounds. The project aims to build electronic sound installations to be used by the animals themselves. Using a wide range of sensors and tools, the animals become able to explore and to play with sounds and sonic moods. The animals, not the humans, will be in full control of the outcome of this sonic scuplture. Since its beginning in 2012 the project is accompanied and documented by Susanna Niedermayr in the framework of ORF Ö1 Zeit-Ton, the broadcast series on new and experimental music of the cultural radio of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. ( - Post Scriptum September 2015: After the first public presentation at musikprotokoll 2013 the project was presented in 2014 in the Kittenberger Erlebnisgärten and at TMA's CYNETART Festival, where alien productions won the CYNETART ARTE Creative Commission. From Mai to October 2015 metamusic was presented at Höhenrausch 2015 (OK, Offenes Kulturhaus in Oberösterreichisches Kulturquartier). A further development of the project is planned. - ) |
| Photos | shot by M.Gross, Andrea Sodomka, Martin Breindl, Iris Baldinger & Christian Markovic. |
Environmental Auditors 05.10.2013
| Date | 05.10.2013 |
| Action | concert, special radio mix |
| Participants | Agnes Hvizdalek, Daniel Lercher, Danielle Dahl, Rosi Rehformen, Rudolf Terland Bjørnerem, Vinzenz Schwab, Simon Daniel Tegnander, Nasra Ali Omar / artistic direction: Daniel Lercher / idea and concept: Susanna Niedermayr and Christian Hollingsaeter |
| Location | Schloßbergbahn |
| Sponsoring Partners | ORF / musikprotokoll / Insomnia |
| mp13 magazine, pg. 44ff | |
| Online References |
http://musikprotokoll.orf.at/en/2013/work/environmental-auditors http://musikprotokoll.orf.at/en/ecas-musikprotokoll |
| Description |
When everyday life invades music: eight musicians, eight environmental auditors from Austria and Norway invited visitors to listen very carefully when their instruments joined in the orchestra of ambient environmental sounds, improvising freely and focusing on the current auditory experience. This during musikprotokoll 2013 formed the starting point for a series of short concerts on the Schloßberg hill in Graz, at different sounding locations. Detached from the context of common performance practice in the concert hall, music became amenable to a new experience. The ÖNCZkekvist project gave rise to an active exchange between the Austrian and Norwegian improvisation scene, an exchange that was now boosted by and continued together with the ECAS partner festival Insomnia in Tromso, where the environmental auditors performed in a recently closed brewery at the end of October 2013. In a special radio mix for the ICAS Radio Show from Insomnia Festival on the 25th of October the soundscapes from Graz and Tromsø were intertwined. ( - Post Scriptum September 2015: After their sonic investigations on the Schlossberg hill in Graz at musikprotokoll 2013 and a recently closed brewery in Tromso at Insomnia 2013 the environmental auditors at the ICAS Festival in Dresden in Spring 2015 sonically investigated the territory around Festspielhaus Hellerau, with a side trip through the Festspielhaus Hellerau. Afterwards they again did a special radio mix out of the recordings which was then broadcasted in the ICAS Radio Show about the ICAS Festival on 8th of May 2015. - ) |
| Photos | shot by Susanna Niedermayr, Oliver Baurhenn and Martin Gross. |
The Silbadores / Part 3: In the end it is all about me03.10.2013
| Date | 03.10.2013 |
| Action | concert |
| Participants | concept, text, dramaturgy: Heimo Lattner, Judith Laub, Karolin Nedelmann / composition, live electronic, diffusion: Werner Dafeldecker / whistle: Kico Correa / voice: Angelika Sauter |
| Location | Schloßbergliftstollen |
| Sponsoring Partners | ORF / musikprotokoll, Tone/Unsound, DISK/ctm, Skaņu Mežs |
| mp13 magazine, pg. 24ff | |
| Online References |
http://musikprotokoll.orf.at/en/node/4841 http://musikprotokoll.orf.at/en/ecas-musikprotokoll http://musikprotokoll.orf.at/de/2013/werk/end-it-all-about-me (german) The Silbadores Blog |
| Description |
Against the background of an examination of the mythological, phenomenological, aesthetic and political connotations of the voice, the artist Heimo Lattner journeyed with cultural and political scientist Judith Laub to the island of La Gomera in order to study the whistled language Silbo Gomero. Gomeran whistlers use the inherent traits of what they need to overcome to communicate messages in barely passable areas: echo carries their whistles over long distances. Metaphorically, the echo – the “voice” of space and time – inserts itself as a corrective between the two figures of whistle and voice. Their interplay formed the basis of the composition developed in collaboration with Werner Dafeldecker. |
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| Photos | shot by M. Gross |
