Avant-garde, Cold War and CIA – Herndon and Dryhurst invite historian Frances Stonor Saunders to HKW for a discussion: What was the relationship between the CIA and intellectual movements during the Cold War? What did they have to do with promoting avant-garde music?
For this live taping of the Interdependence podcast, the artists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst will hold a conversation with the British historian Frances Stonor Saunders. Her book Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War explores
CIA efforts to weaponise artistic movements and spread American cultural influence during the Cold War. The podcast will be broadcasting from HKW whose building was gifted to Berlin by the USA and is situated on John-Foster-Dulles-Allee.
John Foster Dulles was the former Secretary of State whose brother was Director of the CIA during the Cold War. Stonor Saunders will discuss the relationships she unearthed between the CIA and intellectual movements at the time, how, if at all, these developments correlate with the funding of American Avant Garde music in the post war period, and reflect on the unique relationship that persists between Germany state funding bodies and the American vanguard.
Interdependence is a series of conversations with people shaping 21st century culture from the studio of Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst in Berlin.
Friday, Nov.13th at 6pm
Live Podcast: Interdependence with Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst, Frances Stonor Saunders
A telematic Berlin-US jam session: Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma from Mouse on Mars bring together multimedia artist Block, theorist Brown Jr., trumpeter Graham and improv musician Jones. The polylog integrates the fallibilities of today’s video communications in improvisational practice.
Together with Andi Toma, Jan St. Werner collaborated with around 30 different artists on the album Dimensional People for their project Mouse On Mars. Now, in a telematic jam session via video conference, the two of them and curators Susanna Bolle and Annette Klein bring the sounds and visions of four very different people into harmony. The multimedia artist Olivia Block from Chicago contributes found and electronic sounds, while the theorist DeForrest Brown Jr., AKA Speaker Music, operates the sampler in New York City. Forbes Graham, meanwhile, sits at his computer in Boston and plays the trumpet, while in Providence improv musician and poet Bonnie Jones contributes circuit bending, words and video. This is how a polylog, mixed in real time by St. Werner and Toma in Berlin, emerges, integrating the fallibilities of contemporary video communication into improvisation practice.
Saturday, Nov.14th at 9pm
ESCAPE FROM AMERICA (Total Recall) with Jan St. Werner / Andi Toma / Olivia Block / DeForrest Brown / Forbes Graham / Bonnie Jones
The Disappearance of Music
13. & 14.11.2020
Online / Live Stream via Haus der Kulturen Welt | John Foster Dulles Allee 10 in 10557 Berlin
