Berlin: CTM Opening Night
Greetings from Berlin, Germany. I’ll be spending the month of February here with the generous support of the Newbury Comics Faculty Fellowship, that funds innovative projects undertaken by Berklee faculty members. I’m here to learn about the electronic music and multimedia performance scene here in Berlin, and I’m hoping to share some initial observations in the coming weeks.
To start things off, I’m attending the CTM/Transmediale festival and conference. The CTM festival is focused on electronic music and related forms, while Transmediale is a conference that provides "critical reflection on the role of digital technologies in present-day society." Together, these are two important events that explore current electronic practice, featuring international artists and speakers.
I arrived Wednesday January 26 and used the first few days here to get settled into my apartment, the time zone, and of course… the weather. Berlin ist kalt…
The opening event of the CTM Festival on Friday night cut to the core of the festival’s theme, "Overlap," with a multimedia concert that featured three very different approaches to blending sound and video. First up was Berlin-based artist Jacob Kirkegaard who’s work "focuses on the scientific and aesthetic aspects of resonance, time, sound and hearing." His piece, "Sabulation" explored the resonances inherent in the sound of wind using field recordings and video from the Singing Sands in the deserts of Oman. By using various microphone techniques, Kirkegaard was able to capture the sound of this environment in totally unexpected ways. The accompanying processed video, in black and white, presented images that gave the impression of a kind of ancient, living sculpture.
Transforma: Operators
Next up was the Berlin-based video performance collective Transforma. Their piece, "Operators," featured studio footage they had shot for the piece, and then processed in real time for the performance. Sound artist Markus Hübner contributed a rhythmic, beat-driven score that provided a tempo reference for the piece. The pulsing images of an industrial work environment and a human "operator" posed the question of who was in control, man or his work.
The highlight of the evening for me was Japanese artist Hiroaki Umeda and his piece "Adapting for Distortion." This really cut to the core of the aesthetic I’m looking to explore here in Berlin. Umeda is a multidisciplinary artist who is well known as a dancer and choreographer. In "Adapting for Distortion," he explores the relationship between projections of simple geometric shapes and bursts of all sorts of noise. He did a masterful job of building tension and release by structuring the complexity of the images in juxtaposition with the density of the noise bursts. The noise elements came from different sources, with a variety of timbres and durations. Overall, while the piece had a minimalist, futuristic feel, along the lines of (no pun intended) Tron, it had a sophisticated, organic sense to it, and Umeda as the central figure, struck a balance as the sole human figure, adding shadows to the projected light and reacting to the bursts of noise.
Adapting for Distortion
While most of the music being presented at CTM is in a club setting, this evening’s event served good introduction to the types of multimedia pieces currently in vogue here in Berlin.
