Kontraklang w/ Annette Krebs, Yan Jun, smallroom string quartet at Studioboerne45 / Wednesday, 14.09.16

Under the title “Darkness, Body Movements & Constructions” this KONTRAKLANG evening presents three artists who work with reduction and simplicity, placing the focus on detail.

The composer Georg Friedrich Haas, born in Graz in 1953, had the idea for a string quartet to perform in total darkness. With his third string quartet “In iij. Noct” (2001) he experiments with darkness as a performative setting: The lack of visual orientation exposes the audience to an intimate situation and a potentially emotionally charged musical experience. It is also a special situation for the musicians themselves, who can neither see their music nor follow the movements of the other musicians. Furthermore, they are seated as far away from each other as possible. “In iij. Noct” will be performed by the Berlin-based young ensemble smallroom, which specializes in the performance of works blurring the lines between music and sound installation.

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Born in 1973, the Chinese artist Yan Jun studied poetry intensively in his youth prior to examining underground rock music in China as a music critic. As a curator and musician, he developed into a central figure on the Beijing scene. Since 2004 he has been active internationally as an improvising artist who works with field recordings and sounds that are characterized by noisiness, high frequencies and the inclusion of silence. In his three works “Simple Acoustics” (2014), “Simple Electronics” (2014) and “Simple Body Movements” (2016, premier performance) for electronics, devices and body, Yan Jun uses simple means to explore acoustics and movements in space – body movements.

“Konstruktion#2” is a kind of performative sound sculpture by the Berlin musician, composer and performer Annette Krebs, who is known from the real-time music scene. Her aim is to examine the essence of undiscovered sounds as they occur. For this purpose, she has undertaken an acoustic-microscopic analysis of different sound objects using minimalist playing techniques and close microphone placement, incorporating this work in her compositions. In her performance, Annette Krebs will take these sounds, noises and recordings and “set them in silence” to draw attention to the most subtle sonic details and changes. “Konstruktion#2” is a part of her electro-acoustic solo series “Konstruktion”, in which she combines techniques and approaches from digital composition, sound art, new music and improvisation.

This event is presented by Digital in Berlin. Check out our Facebook page to win tickets.