Skaņu mežs


Symposium

Poster

programme (pdf) ECAS WP 3 - Stage

Skaņu Mežs 2013
»festival for adventurous music«
07.09. - 27.10.2013 / Riga, Latvia

Skaņu Mežs, the festival for adventurous music, is a member of the international experimental music festival network ECAS (European Cities of Advanced Sound). Highlighting the network’s theme for 2013, Ubiquitous Music, Skaņu Mežs has selected music from a vast and varied field. This is exemplified by Marcus Schmickler’s galactic composition, Richard Mosse’s political installation, Trihar’s scrap symphony and Julia Holter’s illusionary ballads.

Harking back to the pluralist nature of experimental music Skaņu Mežs wants to emphasize that 2013 is the European Year of Citizens and encourages audiences to come together and be aware of the music’s contemplative nature, not forgetting our own individual ways of perceiving and forming our reality.

Skaņu Mežs 2013 is partly dedicated to the book “Atmiņu Daugava” (The Daugava of our Memories). This book reminds us of the Daugava which was lost.

> Symposium description & details

ECAS supported events during the festival:
Pan Showcase, Skaņu Mežs event at Riga's White night event07.09.2013
Date07.09.2013
Action
ParticipantsEli Keszler, Valerio Tricoli, Luke Younger (Helm)
LocationAnglikanu Baznica, Anglikāņu iela 2, Riga-LV-1050
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 11
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/lv/2013/skanu-mezs-baltaja-nakti2013-izdevniecibas-pan-prezentacija-anglikanu-baznica/
https://www.facebook.com/events/537089056362712/?ref=4

Photos Photos by Inese Vilciņa
Description Bill Kouligas is a Greek music curator and publisher as well as a DJ and sound artist who, after moving to Berlin, created the label PAN initially to promote his friends’ music and to realise his interest in visual art. Kouligas himself plays in a sound art project Family Battle Snake, and performs as a DJ, demonstrating his vast knowledge about music history and eclectic interests.

Eli Keszler is an improvisational percussionist and composer from New York. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Massachusetts where he developed a deeper interest for improvisational music and a fascination for the overlap between music and contemporary art. Keszler’s last few recordings, released by the label PAN, document, for example, one of his sound installations in which piano strings attached to a wall are accompanied by acoustic and electric instruments.

Luke Younger, or Helm , lives in London and recently released his third album, “Impossible Symmetry,” with the label PAN. It is an exploratory, intuitive yet thoroughly composed work that engages with aspects of industrial, noise, drone and ritualistic rhythm on its own terms. FACT Magazine writes the following about the album: ”Impossible Symmetry is a work of urbane psychedelia that channels the occult without recourse to cliche; moreover, it feels like an important work, both within the Younger canon, and without.” His new EP “Silencer’’ will be relased on September 9 by PAN.

Valerio Tricoli is a composer, sound artist, improviser, producer, sound engineer and curator currently living in Berlin. Tricoli’s primary focus in his music is to combine musique concrète and conceptual approaches to sound with radical observations about the interaction between reality and memory. Tricoli mostly utilizes analog instruments in his performances, such as cassette players, sythesizers, microphones and lighting effects, and uses these to highlight the interaction between audience, sound and space. His next PAN release will be out in November
 
Skaņu Mežs event as part of Mark Rothko 110th birthday celebration25.09.2013
Date25.09.2013
ActionSkaņu Mežs event as part of Mark Rothko 110th birthday celebration
ParticipantsAMM (Eddie Prevost, John Tilbury)
LocationMarka Rotko Mākslas Centrs, Михаила, 3, Daugavpils-LV-5401
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 15
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/lv/2013/daugavpils-rotko-centra-uzstasies-anglu-brivas-improvizacijas-grupa-amm/
https://www.facebook.com/events/657580934274796/?ref=4
http://www.rothkocenter.com/rmc/notikumi/rotko-110.-dzimsanas-dienas-sv-8426
Photos Photos by Roma Rubenis
Description AMM is a free improvisation ensemble founded in 1965 in London. The only stable member of the ensemble is percussionist Eddie Prévost, but currently also contains the pianist John Tilbury who has been active within AMM since 1980. The ensemble is well-respected for its contribution to the development of experimental music. This is grounded in the participants’ sensitive approach and concentration when creating a unique logic for each performed piece. As the musicians playing in AMM come from a school of performers inspired by the abstract expressionists of New York and Mark Rothko in particular, the group’s concert commemorates Mark Rothko’s 110th anniversary.
 
Sound art symposium "Transforming the space into a place"07.10. - 08.10.2013
LocationLatvijas Mūzikas akadēmija, Kr. Barona iela 1
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 56ff
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/lv/2013/riga-notiks-starptautisks-skanu-makslai-veltits-simpozijs/
http://ecasnetwork.org/blog/an-international-symposium-for-sound-art/

audio documentation
Photos photo gallery 1 - photos by Linda Abolina
Description An international symposium “Sound Art: Transforming the Space into a Place” about the history and current tendencies of sound art/audio visual art. The International symposium intends to mediate and support a theoretical discourse and actual knowledge about past, present and future dimensions of sound art in Latvia and beyond. With formats like lectures, presentations and panel discussions topics like “Sound art in the landscape” or “The specific role of sound in artwork practices” will be considered. The symposium, which is curated by Carsten Seiffarth (Berlin), is a corporation project co-organized by Skaņu Mežs festival for adventurous music and the EUNIC network of European cultural institutions in Latvia. It is a conceptual introduction to another co-production of Skaņu Mežs and EUNIC Riga – the sound art exhibition “SKAN II”, which is coming in 2014 as part of the program of “Riga European Capital of Culture 2014”.
 
Date07.10.2013
ActionSpeech "Latvian traditions and developements in Sound Art"
ParticipantsViestarts Gailitis
Description
 
Date07.10.2013
Actionkey note: "Sound Art: Space as information which is present"
ParticipantsHelga de la Motte-Haber
Description Helga de la Motte-Haber was born in 1938 in Ludwigshafen. She studied psychology, (graduated in 1961) and musicology, after which she gained a doctorate by the University of Hamburg. From 1965 till 1972 she was part of the staff of scientists at the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Berlin, working in the Department of Acoustics. During the exact same period she also worked as a lecturer in the department of Musicology of the Technical University of Berlin. 1972- 1978: professorship at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Köln, 1978 -2004: professorship at the Technische Universität Berlin. Honorary member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fürMusikpsychologie and Gesellschaft für Musikforschung. Books on: Psychology of Music,Sound Art, Music of the 20th Century.
 
Date07.10.2013
Actionlecture: „Objectivity of Sound“
ParticipantsVoldemārs Johansons
Description Voldemars Johansons is a Renaissance-type artist whose artworks merge interests in visuality, sound and science. He is one of the most convincing representatives of contemporary art in Latvia today, and he has won international attention with his sound and light installations, water sculptures, and even compositions on a flat plane. All of these demonstrate a distinctly sensitive attitude toward form and space.
 
Date07.10.2013
Actionround table
ParticipantsHelga de la Motte-Haber, Voldemārs Johansons, Carsten Seiffarth; Moderator: Raoul Mörchen
Description Born in 1967 in a small village in Westphalia (Germany), Raoul Mörchen studied musicology, art history and philosophy in Münster and Cologne. He received his M.A. in 1995 with a thesis on Morton Feldman. Works as a music critic and author for newspapers, magazines, journals and the German public radio network ARD. Co-editor of the journal kunstMUSIK (2003-2011) dedicated to essays by composers and sound artists. Editor and translator of the Middleburg Lectures by Morton Feldman published by MusikTexte. In 2006 and 2008 he co-organized the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. Since 2009 he presents a daily arts and culture radio show for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne.
 
Date07.10.2013
Actionkey note: "sound art and music - an historical review"
ParticipantsVolker Straebel
Description Volker Straebel (1969) is a musicologist focusing on electro-acoustic music, the American and European avant-garde, intermedia, performance and sound art. He is director of the Electronic Music Studio at Technische Universität Berlin and lectures at Sound Studies at Universität der Künste Berlin. He has realized and performed indeterminate works by John Cage and himself.
 
Date07.10.2013
Actionlecture: „sound in my art practice“
ParticipantsEvelīna Deičmane
Description Evelīna Deičmane’s work, which often makes reference to her national background, uses a wide range of techniques, among which sound and visual elements. Her conceptual approach is tempered by existential moods and human experiences, creating a space where sorrow collides with happiness, and drama is diffused with humour. Deicmane has participated in numerous exhibitions and biennales since 2002 such as the 12th International Cairo Biennale (2010), Manifesta 7 (Bozen/Bolzano, 2008), the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007) and the 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006). Together with Miks Mitrevics she also represented Latvia at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).
 
Date07.10.2013
Actionlecture: "sound and space as a material in sound art"
ParticipantsJacob Kirkegaard
Description Danish artist Jacob Kirkegaard’s works are focused on scientific and aesthetic aspects of sonic perception. He explores acoustic spaces and phenomena that usually remain imperceptible to the immediate ear. Kirkegaard’s installations, compositions & photographs are created from within a variety of environments such as subterranean geyser vibrations, empty rooms in Chernobyl, a rotating TV tower, and even sounds from the human inner ear itself. Based in Berlin, Germany, Kirkegaard is a graduate of the Academy for Media Arts in Cologne. Since 1995, Kirkegaard has presented his works at galleries, museums, venues & conferences throughout the world. His sound works are primarily released by the British record label Touch and he is a member of the sound art collective freq_out. “For all the scientific rigour to Kirkegaard’s research into the sonic possibilities of various materials, his work reveals an underlying fascination for the mysteries and myths embedded in them. His work channels an access to an inner world.” Anne Hilde Neset, The Wire
 
Date07.10.2013
Actionround table
ParticipantsVolker Straebel, Evelina Deicmane, Jacob Kirkegaard
Description
 
Date08.10.2013
Actionkey note: "sound art and architecture"
ParticipantsRahma Kazam
Description Rahma Khazam is a freelance writer and journalist based in Paris, France. She has published numerous articles on music, sound and art in magazines, journals and anthologies and given lectures on the role of sound in contemporary art. She is also the editor-in-chief of Earshot, a British journal addressing the relations between sound and architecture. She has an MA in Philosophy and a language degree from the Sorbonne. She is British, but has been living in Paris since 1981. She has written for the British music magazine The Wire, for the Xebec magazine Sound Arts and for a number of French publications. Her special interests are early electronic instruments and real-time interactive performance. She is a member of the UK Soundscape Community.
 
Date08.10.2013
Actionlecture: "sound art in the landscape"
ParticipantsMax Eastley
Description Max Eastley is an internationally recognized artist who combines kinetic sculpture and sound into a unique art form. His sculptures exist on the border between the natural environment and human intervention and use the driving forces of electricity, wind, water and ice. He has exhibited both interior and exterior works internationally. His work is represented in the permanent collection of the Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany. He is also well known as a musician and has played concerts solo and with numerous eclectic groups of musicians including David Toop, Evan Parker. Since 2003 he has been an artist with the Cape Farewell Climate Change Project for whom he has created a number of installations, compositions and performances. He is currently an Arts and Humanities Research Council Senior Researcher at Oxford Brookes University, investigating Aeolian phenomena through artistic practice and historical research, and is currently involved in a project, Audible Forces, touring festivals in the UK with a group of artists using the wind as an energy source.
 
Date08.10.2013
Actionfinal round table
ParticipantsHelga de la Motte-Haber, Rahma Kazam, Max Eastley
Description
 
first concert evening: "Spaces"10.10.2013
Date10.10.2013
Actionfirst concert evening
ParticipantsJan-Peter E.R. Sonntag (A/v Work presentation), Performances by KTL, Phill Niblock (performed by Guna Āboltiņa), Stephan Mathieu, Nate Young
Locationcinema Splendid Palace
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 16ff
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/lv/2013/skanu-mezs2013-pirma-diena-splendid-palace-1900/ (latvian language)


Photos Photos by Arnis Kalniņš
DescriptionA piece commissioned specifically for Skaņu Mežs will be performed on October 10. This project was created by Nate Young, member of the well known noise music group Wolf Eyes. Young has composed a new soundtrack to the classic Latvian film “Nāves ēnā” (In the Shadow of Death) based on the novel by Rūdolfs Blaumanis. The piece will be performed to segments of the film.

Multi-disciplinary artist Jan-Peter Sonntag has studied a wide range of subjects at various universities, including instrumental music, music theory, the history and theory of new media, composition and cognitive sciences. He has participated in master-classes with John Cage and Alvin Lucier. In Riga he is going to present one of his latest works – “Pacific nocturne”, which he describes as “an audio-visual composition for 2 crickets, motorbikes on the Sunset Boulevard, planes over the bay, the cinema organ of the Villa Aurora in the Pacific Palisades during and after the sunset and the moving images of the Ferris wheel of the the Pacific Park on the pier of Santa Monica... There are so many connotations: Aurora had been the villa of Lion Feuchtwanger and not only Martha had played on the organ. It was played by their guests like Hans Eisler and Ernst Toch, too ... And the history of such cinema organs ... Or what that composition mean in my oeuvre ...and the history of the Ferrie wheel ... and critical theory developed by Adorno and Horkheimer - the neighbours and guests of the Villa, too.”

KTL is a duo consisting of Peter Rehberg, an influential music publisher and composer, and Stephen O’Malley, founder of the avant-garde metal group Sunn 0))). The duet has already published five full-length albums in which the overarching sound is one in which an untamed and unpredictable dimension co-exists with an electronically controlled and precise one. Each new album offers new solutions to this cross-media and cross-genre dynamic.

Phill Niblock is one of few still practicing musicians from the older generation of minimalist composers. His music is like geologic movement – massive microtonal compositions without rhythm or melody. Minimalist music in the truest sense of the term. Niblock should not only be regarded as one of the most interesting composers of our time, but also as a vital organisational personality in the creative life of New York. He has turned his vast loft into a studio for his own organisation, Experimental Intermedia, which regularly hosts events with new as well as more established musicians’ and artists. Riga concert will be his first after his 80th birthday in NYC. Niblock’s composition „FeedCorn Ear“ will be performed by cellist Guna Āboltiņa from Sinfonietta Riga.

Stephan Mathieu is a self-taught composer and performer of his own music, working in the fields of electroacaustics and abstract digitala. His sound is largely based on early instruments, environmental sound and obsolete media, which are recorded and transformed by means of experimental microphony, re-editing techniques and software processes involving spectral analysis and convolution; it has been compared to the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and the work of abstract painters Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Ellsworth Kelly.
 
second concert evening: "Chambers"11.10.2013
Date11.10.2013
Actionsecond concert evening
ParticipantsEvol, Shackleton, Demdike Stare
Locationconcert hall Palladium
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 28ff
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/2013/skanu-mezs2013-otra-diena-palladium-2000/ (latvian language)


Photos Photos by Arnis Kalniņš
Description Roc Jiménez de Cisneros is the founder of the project Evol. De Cisneros lives and works in Barcelona, and his work is described as an aesthetic study of algorithmic composition, and as a deconstruction of rave culture. The “hoover sound” Evol uses on records and during performances, so characteristic to rave, is generated by using a variety of computer composition techniques. Aesthetically this noise is converted into a claustrophobic and terrifyingly fun hyperbole. Evol is, perhaps, one of the most radical projects focused on the re-evaluation of dance music.

Shackleton founded the legendary record label Skull Disco together with colleague Appleblim. This label was for many years an indespensible part of the dubstep scene. The magazine Resident Advisor writes about his music thus: “Shackleton’s loopy drum programming and ink-stained bass [...] are pushed to psychedelic extremes. Rather than seeking a way out for his music, he found new ways to burrow deeper.” His latest musical output “Music for the Quiet Hour/The Drawbar Organ EPs,” introduces lighter elements into his music – for example uplifting organ themes as well as more colorful choices of texture.

Demdike Stare is an audiovisual duet often mentioned in connection with the so-called renaissance of dark electronic music which has also touched the field of contemporary dance music in the recent years. In addition to being one of the most sought out projects in its curious genre of occult electronica, Demdike Stare is also undoubtedly the most original. This is possibly due to the fact that both of the group’s members are seasoned vinyl record collectors. Both musicians’ incredibly vast knowledge of music lets them create very precise moods, at times menacing, but always sonorous.
 
third concert evening: "Rooms"12.10.2013
Date12.10.2013
Actionthird concert evening
ParticipantsMilan Adamčiak, Marcus Schmickler (Performance of "particle/matter-wave/energy"), Lustmord, Ectoplasm Girls
LocationLatvian Railroad Museum (Latvijas dzelzceļa vēstures muzejs)
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 38ff
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/2013/skanu-mezs2013-tresa-diena-latvijas-dzelzcela-vestures-muzejs-1600/ (latvian language)


Photos Photos by Arnis Kalniņš
Description Milan Adamciak is a Slovakian composer who is often referred to as one of the most interesting and talented composers of the so-called 20th century post-war avant-garde, but is at the same time not widely known. His experimental poetry often surprises listeners due to its exotic texture, while Adamciak’s graphical notation is often referred to as radical because of the way it balances between being abstract and indirectly appealing to specific modes of execution. The scores themselves are visually stunning so that they could almost be mistaken for abstract paintings. In Riga Adamciak’s graphical notation pieces will be performed by Mi-65, an occasional ensemble that among others consists of Slovakian composer Daniel Matej, musicians Miro Tóth and Roman Laščiak, Arturas Bumšteinas from Lithuania and a round of Latvian musicians, including Edgars Rubenis (belonging to the core group), Ivars Arutjunjans, Staņislavs Judins, Aleksejs Bahirs and Platons Buravickis.


Marcus Schmickler is a German composer, producer and musician. He creates his music through improvisation as well as by composition. The results range from abstract computer music to arranged madrigals suited for choirs and orchestras. At the center of Schmickler’s musical experimentation are various auditory phenomena and sound illusions. In the piece Schmickler will perform at the Latvian Railway Museum gallactic movements are converted into sound. This piece was created with the help of scientists from the Argelander Institute for Astronomy in Germany.

Ectoplasm Girls are a duo consisting of sisters Nadine and Tanya Byrne from Stockholm. Their music is playful, morose, dark, happy, light, still, danceable, eerie, dreamy, psychic, childish, adult, groundbreaking and many other things, all at once. On their debut album, TxN (Ideal, 2011), it’s possible to peek into their psyches, emotional lives and their relations to each other.

Brian Williams is a British electronic musician often credited for creating the dark ambient genre with albums recorded under the name Lustmord. Williams started recording as Lustmord in 1980 before joining SPK in 1982. Lustmord has extracted field recordings made in crypts, caves, and slaughterhouses, and combined it with occasional ritualistic incantations and Tibetan horns. His treatments of acoustic phenomena encased in digitally expanded bass rumbles have a dark ambient quality.
 
fourth concert evening26.10.2013
Date26.10.2013
Actionfourth concert evening
ParticipantsPoetry-music project "Vārdrūme II" (Agnese Krivade & Oskars Herliņš, Jānis Rokpelnis & Māris Butlers, Semjons Haņins & Staņislavs Judins), Julia Holter, Fushitsusha
Location“Ziemeļblāzma”
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 50ff
Online References


Photos photo by Arnis Kalniņš
Description Vārdrūme II (Wordspace II) is a follow-up to last year’s poetry/music project by the same name, which was also presented at Skaņu Mežs. This year the participating duos are: translator and poet Jānis Rokpelnis with Māris Butlers from the improvised/ noise music band PuseH PuseW; poet from the multimedia-text collective Orbīta Semjons Haņins with free jazz upright bass player Staņislavs Judins; Agnese Krivade, who made acclaimed literary debut with 2007’s poetry collection “Childhood’’, with Oskars Herliņš, composer of acoustic and electronic music.


Julia Holter has managed to introduce literary influences and John Cage’s ideas into synthpop and “bedroom” music. Holter is an academically schooled musician who graduated in composition from the California Institute of Arts. Parallel to her creative work, Holter works as a private piano tutor for children.


Fushitsusha is a Japanese rock band specialising in the psychedelic rock, space rock and noise rock genres. The band is led by Keiji Haino. Their music occasionally ventures to the more aggressive “Japanoise” end of the sonic spectrum, but usually remains haunting and contemplative. This concert is a part of program “Experimental music from Japan’’, and is supported by Japan Foundation.

 
closing event27.10.2013
Date27.10.2013
Actionclosing event
ParticipantsOtomo Yoshihide
LocationKaņepes Kultūras centrs
Sponsoring PartnersSkaņu Mežs
PrintSkaņu Mežs'2013 print program, pg. 55
Online References http://www.skanumezs.lv/lv/2013/riga-uzstasies-brivas-improvizacijas-pionieris-otomo-josihide/


Photos photos by Linda Abolina
DescriptionOtomo Yoshihide, who originally gained popularity with the experimental rock group Ground Zero, has over the past twenty years established a cult following in the international avant-garde underground.
 


Symposium

An international symposium “Sound Art: Transforming the Space into a Place” about the history and current tendencies of sound art/audio visual art. The International symposium intends to mediate and support a theoretical discourse and actual knowledge about past, present and future dimensions of sound art in Latvia and beyond. With formats like lectures, presentations and panel discussions topics like “Sound art in the landscape” or “The specific role of sound in artwork practices” will be considered.

The symposium, which is curated by Carsten Seiffarth (Berlin), is a corporation project co-organized by Skaņu Mežs festival for adven-turous music and the EUNIC network of European cultural institutions in Latvia. It is a conceptual introduction to another co-production of Skaņu Mežs and EUNIC Riga – the sound art exhibition “SKAN II”, which is coming in 2014 as part of the program of “Riga European Capital of Culture 2014”.

PROGRAM AND PARTICIPANTS:

Viestarts Gailitis (Riga)
„Latvian traditions and developments in sound art“

Helga de la Motte-Haber (Berlin)
„Sound art: space as information which is present “

Helga de la Motte-Haber was born in 1938 in Ludwigshafen. She studied psychology, (graduated in 1961) and musicology, after which she gained a doctorate by the University of Hamburg. From 1965 till 1972 she was part of the staff of scientists at the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Berlin, working in the Department of Acoustics. During the exact same period she also worked as a lecturer in the department of Musicology of the Technical University of Berlin. 1972- 1978: professorship at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Köln, 1978 -2004: professorship at the Technische Universität Berlin. Honorary member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fürMusikpsychologie and Gesellschaft für Musikforschung. Books on: Psychology of Music,Sound Art, Music of the 20th Century.

Volker Straebel (Berlin)
„Sound art and music – a historical review“

Volker Straebel (1969) is a musicologist focusing on electro-acoustic music, the American and European avant-garde, intermedia, performance and sound art. He is director of the Electronic Music Studio at Technische Universität Berlin and lectures at Sound Studies at Universität der Künste Berlin. He has realized and performed indeterminate works by John Cage and himself.

Rahma Khazam (Paris)
„Sound art and architecture“

Rahma Khazam is a freelance writer and journalist based in Paris, France. She has published numerous articles on music, sound and art in magazines, journals and anthologies and given lectures on the role of sound in contemporary art. She is also the editor-in-chief of Earshot, a British journal addressing the relations between sound and architecture. She has an MA in Philosophy and a language degree from the Sorbonne. She is British, but has been living in Paris since 1981. She has written for the British music magazine The Wire, for the Xebec magazine Sound Arts and for a number of French publications. Her special interests are early electronic instruments and real-time interactive performance. She is a member of the UK Soundscape Community.

Max Eastley (London)
„Sound art in the landscape“

Max Eastley is an internationally recognized artist who combines kinetic sculpture and sound into a unique art form. His sculptures exist on the border between the natural environment and human intervention and use the driving forces of electricity, wind, water and ice. He has exhibited both interior and exterior works internationally. His work is represented in the permanent collection of the Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany. He is also well known as a musician and has played concerts solo and with numerous eclectic groups of musicians including David Toop, Evan Parker. Since 2003 he has been an artist with the Cape Farewell Climate Change Project for whom he has created a number of installations, compositions and performances. He is currently an Arts and Humanities Research Council Senior Researcher at Oxford Brookes University, investigating Aeolian phenomena through artistic practice and historical research, and is currently involved in a project, Audible Forces, touring festivals in the UK with a group of artists using the wind as an energy source.

Jacob Kirkegaard (Kopenhagen/Berlin)
„Sound and space as a material in sound art“

Danish artist Jacob Kirkegaard’s works are focused on scientific and aesthetic aspects of sonic perception. He explores acoustic spaces and phenomena that usually remain imperceptible to the immediate ear. Kirkegaard’s installations, compositions & photographs are created from within a variety of environments such as subterranean geyser vibrations, empty rooms in Chernobyl, a rotating TV tower, and even sounds from the human inner ear itself. Based in Berlin, Germany, Kirkegaard is a graduate of the Academy for Media Arts in Cologne. Since 1995, Kirkegaard has presented his works at galleries, museums, venues & conferences throughout the world. His sound works are primarily released by the British record label Touch and he is a member of the sound art collective freq_out. “For all the scientific rigour to Kirkegaard’s research into the sonic possibilities of various materials, his work reveals an underlying fascination for the mysteries and myths embedded in them. His work channels an access to an inner world.” Anne Hilde Neset, The Wire

Evelīna Deičmane (Riga)
„Sound in my art practice“

Evelīna Deičmane’s work, which often makes reference to her national background, uses a wide range of techniques, among which sound and visual elements. Her conceptual approach is tempered by existential moods and human experiences, creating a space where sorrow collides with happiness, and drama is diffused with humour. Deicmane has participated in numerous exhibitions and biennales since 2002 such as the 12th International Cairo Biennale (2010), Manifesta 7 (Bozen/Bolzano, 2008), the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007) and the 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006). Together with Miks Mitrevics she also represented Latvia at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).

Voldemārs Johansons (Riga)
„Objectivity of sound“

Voldemars Johansons is a Renaissance-type artist whose artworks merge interests in visuality, sound and science. He is one of the most convincing representatives of contemporary art in Latvia today, and he has won international attention with his sound and light installations, water sculptures, and even compositions on a flat plane. All of these demonstrate a distinctly sensitive attitude toward form and space.

Raoul Mörchen (moderator)

Born in 1967 in a small village in Westphalia (Germany), Raoul Mörchen studied musicology, art history and philosophy in Münster and Cologne. He received his M.A. in 1995 with a thesis on Morton Feldman. Works as a music critic and author for newspapers, magazines, journals and the German public radio network ARD. Co-editor of the journal kunstMUSIK (2003-2011) dedicated to essays by composers and sound artists. Editor and translator of the Middleburg Lectures by Morton Feldman published by MusikTexte. In 2006 and 2008 he co-organized the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. Since 2009 he presents a daily arts and culture radio show for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne.

Sound art symposium

"Transforming the space into a place"
07.10. - 08.10.2013

audio documentation

Please note:
not all speakers and panels were recorded, also the quality of the recordings differ a lot.


Speech "Latvian traditions and developements in Sound Art" by Viestarts Gailitis

Download MP3 : here


key note: "Sound Art: Space as information which is present" by Helga de la Motte-Haber


Download MP3 : here


lecture: „Objectivity of Sound“ by Voldemārs Johansons

Download MP3 : here


round table with Helga de la Motte-Haber, Voldemārs Johansons, Carsten Seiffarth; Moderator: Raoul Mörchen

Download MP3 : pt 1 && pt 2


key note: "sound art and music - an historical review" by Volker Straebel


Download MP3 : here


lecture: „sound in my art practice“ by Evelīna Deičmane


Download MP3 : here


lecture: "sound and space as a material in sound art" by Jacob Kirkegaard

Download MP3 : here


round table 07.10.2013: Volker Straebel, Evelina Deicmane, Jacob Kirkegaard

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recording 08.10.2013

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2013

Skaņu Mežs

Working Period III