The Sonic Acts festival is well-known for interdisciplinary projects and the focus on developments at the intersections of art, technology, music and science. The festival consists of live performances, a conferance, film programme and an exhibition. The fourteenth edition will take place 23-26 February at various locations in Amsterdam
The theme for this edition is ‘Travelling Time’ and offers an experience of time and ideas relating to time. Time is a complex and ongoing technological developments continually change our notions of time. Communication networks operate at light speed and computers process data in real-time without human mediation, resulting in a gap between machine time and the human experience of it.
Masterclasses
In collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum and STEIM, Sonic Acts will host a series of Master Classes as part of this year’s festival theme Travelling Time. The master classes will be supervised by Catherine Christer Hennix, Peter Kubelka, Olaf Nicolai, Pauline Oliveros and Tino Sehgal
The master classes provide a unique opportunity to work with five internationally renowned artist whose work critically reflects on time and timing. In a concentrated and intimate setting, participants will gain insights into the ‘artist’ concepts, creative processes and methods of composition and production through hands-on workshops and seminars.
The deadline for applications is February 12. Send a biography and a short statement of motivation to take part in a specific master class to masterclass@sonicacts.com.
Dates & locations
The masterclasses take place in Amsterdam at STEIM, SMART Project Space and de Balie.
February 20 – Olaf Nicolai
A German artist whose conceptual approach and use of diverse media question the way in which we view our everyday environment. He also translates theories from science and the arts into aesthetic-artistic idioms, rendering them accessible in a new context. His works deal with the perception of time in the reception of art. Nicolai has participated in international solo and group exhibitions. His works were shown at Documenta X, and at the 49th and 51st Venice Biennales. Several of his works can be found in public collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Thyssen Bornemisza Art
February 21 & 22 – Catherine Christer Hennix
Composer, philosopher, mathematician and visual artist. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, she worked with illustrious figures such as La Monte Young and Pandit Pran Nath, who were very important for her own work. She has frequently collaborated with the American anti-art philosopher, composer and violinist Henry Flynt. Hennix also draws inspiration from Japanese Gagaku music and early vocal music of Perotinus and Leoninus. All her major compositions, including The Electric Harpsichord, are regarded as part of an ongoing, endless cycle. Hennix’ two-day master class will investigate the relationship between modern music, programming and linguistics, and relate the latter to mathematical structures.
February 22 – Peter Kubelka
A multifaceted artist and theoretician who has worked in film, cooking, music, architecture, speech and writing. He communicates through lectures, which also use non-verbal elements “to free our world view from being the exclusive property of language.” Kubelka’s cinematographic work is short and highly condensed. His “Metric Films” preceded and laid the foundations for structural cinema. Kubelka will lead a master class on film and cooking.
February 23 – Pauline Oliveros
Composer, performer and humanitarian, she is an important pioneer in American music and electronic music. She has explored sound for five decades, breaking new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation, she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that is profoundly affects those who experience it. Oliveros will lead a Deep Listening session.
February 23 – Tino Sehgal
A British-German artist whose works, which he calls “constructed situations,” involve one or more people carrying out instructions conceived by the artist. What all of Sehgal’s works have in common is that they reside only in the space and time they occupy, and in the memory of the work and its reception. The artist himself describes his works as “constructed situations,” whose materials are the human voice, language, movement and interaction, without the production of physical objects. His pieces are choreographies that are regularly staged in museums or galleries, and continuously executed for the entire duration of a show. In 2012, he will present a newly commissioned work for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London.
Live preformances
The acts we think you shouldn’t miss.
Eleh, mysterious minimal electronic music project, best when played very loud
Mark Fell, one half of SND, experimenting with rhythms
Youth Lagoon, new kid on the dream pop block
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