09.10.2015

Sonic Ark - Lyden af Aarhus 2017

I 2017 er Aarhus som bekendt europæisk kulturhovedstad og sådan en skal naturligvis have lydkunst! Derfor blev der sidste år udskrevet en konkurrence, Lyden af Aarhus 2017. Blandt de 31 indsendte projekter fra hele verden har en fagjury udvalgt schweizeren Andres Bosshard med projektet Sonic Ark. Seismograf/DMT talte med Bosshard umiddelbart efter offentliggørelsen.

”Sonic Ark er et dramaturgisk koncept, der består at en række installationer, som flytter sig igennem det offentlige rum, og som helt bogstaveligt tager udgangspunkt i lyden af Aarhus”, fortæller Bosshard.

”Lydmæssigt sover Aarhus, men den er en sovende skønhed og jeg kan høre et stort potentiale i byens lyde, som bare trænger til at blive vækket. Jeg er ikke pessimist i forhold til byens støjende miljø. Med mine værker er jeg mere interesseret i at give bedre betingelser for kvaliteten i lytningen, for derigennem at kunne arbejde mod et bedre lydmiljø. Og her har Aarhus meget at byde på. Jeg har allerede været her to gange og gennem det næste år vil jeg i tæt samarbejde med byens borgere undersøge og lytte til forskellige steder i byen for at indsamle de lyde, som kommer til at indgå i værkerne. For eksempel arbejder et af værkerne med en kombination af mikroskopiske plantelyde, lyden af det århusianske sprog og den makroskopiske arkitektur i Botanisk Have. Her er borgerne vigtige det talte århusianske sprog er helt centralt.”

Der er klare lydøkologiske undertoner i projektet, men Bosshard mener ikke, at verden er ved at blive oversvømmet af dårlig lyd. Derimod mener han, at kan vi blive bedre til at lytte til de lyde, der allerede er her, og projekttitlens bibelske reference skal derfor heller ikke tages helt bogstaveligt.

”Jeg ser nærmere Arken som en metafor for at kunne lære at sætte pris på at sejle rundt, flyde ind og ud af eller drive gennem byens akustiske landskab. Det handler ikke så meget om, at vi skal beskyttes mod støjen, men jeg kunne godt tænke mig at folk kommer til at kende byen bedre, får lyst til at udforske dens lyde og måske endda kan lære at spille på den som et instrument,” forklarer han.

I sit arbejde sammenligner han også sig selv med en sømand, der er afhængig af vind og bølger for at kunne få skibet til at sejle – en tilgang der præger hans måde at interagere med lydmiljøet på.

”Hele byens lydbillede er på en måde med i værket og især lyden af menneskene i byen. På den måde handler det økologiske ikke kun om natur, men også om det sociale, om interaktion og kommunikation. Gennem øret kan vi opnå en betydelig større livskvalitet, og jeg håber at folk i Aarhus efter 2017 vil ’tro’ mere på deres egen lyd. Jeg er mest interesseret i at ændre bevidstheden om og stoltheden over hvilken lydkvalitet Aarhus har som by. Og jeg tror ikke der skal så meget til, for at vække den sovende skønhed”, slutter Andres Bosshard.

Det er Europæisk Kulturhovedstad Aarhus 2017 og de tre komponistforeninger Danske Jazz, Beat og Folkemusik Autorer (DJBFA), Dansk Komponist Forening (DKF) og Danske Populære Autorer (DPA), der har stået bag konkurrencen Lyden af Aarhus 2017. Foruden værkbestillingen, mortager Andres Bosshard en pris på 200.000 kr.

Andres Bosshard, f. 1955, bor og arbejder i Zürich i Schweiz. Han er uddannet kunstmaler, og begyndte tidligt at arbejde med eksperimenterende musik og teater. Han har udviklet roterende lydobjekter, interaktiv computermusik, programmer og lydinstallationer. Blandt andre “Sound Tower” ved Expo.02 ved Bieler-søen i Schweiz.

31.03

Local Forces Behind New Electronic Festival in Aalborg

On May 29, the Aalborg-based collective Datahaven9000 takes over the venue Skråen, transforming its main hall into a concentrated one-day festival of electronic music. The event is part of the concert series Bystanders #3, where the stage is handed over to local scenes rather than the venue’s in-house programming.

in briefrelease

30.03

Inside the Belly of an Alien Sonic Organism

Ideologic Organ / La Becque Editions, 27.03

Nikola Nedeljkovic Gøttsche

Two of contemporary music’s most uncompromising material thinkers meet on Music for Intersecting Planes: the American organist Kali Malone and the French cellist Leila Bordreuil. Malone works with oversaturated blocks of sound and sonic mass as a sustained pressure, while Bordreuil seeks friction – her cello a recalcitrant organism that creaks and resists.

What they share is an ascetic attention to the specificity of their instruments. The organ and the cello are pushed to their outer limits, where recognizability dissolves and overtones emerge like hidden entities.

The title pieces, »Intersecting Planes I» and »II«, unfold as undulating ruptures of sound: animalistic, almost elephantine cries that surge forward and recede again. Only rarely can the sound be identified as organ or cello. (»Pilots in the Night« comes closest to a familiar balance between the organ’s gravity and the cello’s resistance.) Otherwise, the music moves within a field between the metallic and the electronic, as if the sound originates neither from strings nor pipes.

It is not mass that is being explored here, but rather a kind of hollowness: an airiness that is not light, but permeated by an indeterminate resonance – something ancient, almost ceremonial. The album holds something far more porous and open than Malone and Bordreuil’s earlier works. The sound appears as a concave form, bending inward, like an absence of material. The sonic landscape carries its own dissolution within it as an inherent delay – as if the music exists, first and foremost, as the erosion of something one thought one heard.

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

30.03

My name is Oscar O'Shea – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music, for me, is the rhythm, the pulse, and the energy of my life. It’s what drives me and can always energize me or colour my day in exactly the way I need. In a very busy, confusing, and chaotic life like the one I find myself in right now, music can be almost the only thing that slows my pace down, gives me access to actually feeling my emotions, and creates space for reflection. Music is history – it remembers moments and moods. It reflects cultures and can become the voice of a generation or an entire group that struggles to break through the mainstream or challenge the status quo. For me, music is one of the primary ways I can influence the society I’m part of – whether by supporting important art that we can see ourselves in, or by bringing large groups of people together around something meaningful and communal. Music, to me, is freedom. Freedom to dance without inhibition, to let the tears flow freely, and the freedom to play air drums at full speed on my yellow racing bike as I ride down Mejlgade.«

Oscar O’Shea is a graduate of the Kaospilot programme, with a focus on innovation in the cultural and music industries. Through SPOT Festival, he works as project manager for the international initiative Live Incubator and the hyper-local event cSPOT at Bowlinghallen. Oscar is a documentary filmmaker and will graduate this summer as part of the first cohort of documentary producers from the independent film school DOKTRIN.

He recently founded the independent Aarhus-based agency Okay Management, which works with artist management, booking, film production, and music releases for a wide range of artists. Through the agency, the venue Okay is opening in the new Stenbro district near Nørreport in Aarhus. The space will showcase Aarhus talent, with a focus on bringing together the city’s emerging cultural scene and building a sustainable music industry from the ground up through knowledge sharing, transparency, and collaboration across the underground and grassroots levels.

In recent years, he has worked as a booker and programme curator for Sydhavns Festival, Gemini Festival, and a wide range of other events and initiatives. His heart beats for DIY and indie culture—for independence and collaboration rather than competition. And although Oscar has lived in many different countries and worked around the world, he always returns to Aarhus—precisely because of the sense of community and the city’s DIY spirit.

in brieflive

28.03

Opera or Exam Preparation?

Mauro Patricelli, Signe Asmussen, Matias Seibæk, Anders Banke, Thommy Andersson, Jessica Lyall et al.: »Tarantula«

Thorvaldsens Museum, 27-28.03.26

Sofus Preisel

Tarantula is presented as a »documentary opera«, a genre created by Mauro Patricelli. The work takes its starting point in tarantism – the myth of the spider’s bite, which triggers madness and the ecstatic dance that heals – and intertwines it with A Doll’s House and Napoli by August Bournonville. The ambition is clear: to reflect female experiences of mania, oppression, and interpretation throughout history. The scenography reinforces the documentary approach. Five suspended screens display text, archival material, a dancer, and a professor character who didactically explains the work’s sources. At the same time, four musicians and the soprano Signe Asmussen stand in a row.

The music alternates between long, bare lines and repetitive, rhythmically complex figures clearly inspired by the tarantella. Yet this very complexity becomes a drawback: the reliance on click-track and sheet music lends a mechanical quality that clashes with the work’s purportedly demonic and physical energy. The main issue is the balance between explanation and interpretation. The professor figure constantly dictates the reading, undermining the work’s own critical ambitions – not least when it simultaneously critiques a »male lens«. The engagement with Ibsen also feels simplified, almost misread, functioning more as illustration than genuine interpretation.

The libretto – largely composed of historical sources and academic language – weighs heavily on the dramaturgy. When a letter about Ibsen’s knowledge of tarantism is elevated to a dramatic climax, it becomes difficult to grasp what is truly at stake. That the text is sung, projected, and handed out in libretto form only intensifies the sense of redundancy. In the end, one is left with the feeling of having attended a lecture rather than an opera. My final note before the curtain fell: Will this be on the test?

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek

playlist

27.03

My name is Alice Ai – would you like to see my playlist?

»Music for me is a place to meet both oneself and others in emotions. It is freedom, community, individuality, language and expression.«

Danish artist Alice Ai combines emotional depth with electronic impact and a punk energy. Her sound moves in the field of tension between the vulnerable and the confrontational – between the human and the synthetic. This duality is embedded in her name: »Alice« refers to curiosity and adventure, and »Ai« points towards the artificial and technological. Together they form the foundation for a contrasting universe that permeates both her music and artistic persona. Alice Ai will play at this year’s Roskilde Festival.