topic

Sounds of the Living

The series of sound interventions at the Otto Wagner Kassenhalle explores the concept of living matter and questions the notion of nature.

Curated by Li Falkensteiner

TOPIC CONTENT:

"To even notice third nature, we must evade assumptions that the future is that singular direction ahead" (Anna Tsing)

Our understanding of nature has changed over time, as has the soundscape on planet Earth. Natural sounds of abiotic elements such as wind, water or earth movements were thus continuously augmented by the sounds of living organisms like humans and further their technology. With these sound performances we want to take a closer look at our surroundings and soundscapes of today.

Third nature is everything that exists alongside and in the face of the destruction caused by the capitalist exploitation and what creates new synergies and coexistences. It is a moment of awareness of the living activities of all beings and emerges within a temporal polyphony.

'Making worlds is not limited to humans'

in The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing proposes the 'third nature' as a moment of awareness of the lively activities of all beings. Starting from the fungal action of matsutake, she interrogates the potentialities of non human to whom an agency can be recognize.

But can we acknowledge this agency and this activity of making worlds as a political act?

What if agency and political are not functions of a body which must necessarily be a human one to enact them, questioning hence the anthropocentric assumption behind Western definition of politics?

sound performance

02 Oct 2021, 18:00

Sounds of the Living

Sound interventions by Natalia Domínguez Rangel and Robert Schwarz and closing of the Vienna Biennale Exhibition

Live-Sets by Natalia Domínguez Rangel and Robert Schwarz

Ecologies and Politics of the Living
Vienna Biennale Program

Image by ©Photo: Simon Veres

Natalia Domínguez Rangel (NL/CO)

is composer/sound artist living and working between Vienna and Amsterdam. Her work has been connected with architecture, acoustics, technology and nature. She is interested how sound affects and resonates with a body physiologically and psychologically, and how critical listening deepens, extends and set connections to other acoustic ecologies not only to the anthrophony.

http://nataliadominguezrangel.com/

Image by ©Photo: Anna Breit

Robert Schwarz (AT)

His background lies in both architecture and computer music. Across a handful of labels, he's presented musique concrète, field recordings and experimental works, and he's participated in exhibitions with some of Europe's most prominent institutions for adventurous art practices. He is the co-founder and curator of the Viennese festival ''PARKEN; Or, Live in the Park'', which aims to mediate experimental forms of music in public spaces and co-author of the works ''Los Bar'', ''Strookoffer'' and ''Lax Bar'', a series of artist run spaces in Los Angeles, Brussels and Vienna. Recently he presented a row of debut releases with side projects like She Was A Visitor, Privat, L/R and Augsburger Messer.

https://r-schwarz.net/
https://soundcloud.com/schwarz

Please register your spot
elisabeth.falkensteiner@ailab.at

Exhibition attendance possible subject to the current valid regulations for museums and art halls.

Please wear a FFP2-mask.

podcast

Sounds of the Living – Part I

The series of sound interventions at the Otto Wagner Kassenhalle explores the concept of living matter and questions the notion of nature

Natalia Domínguez Rangel played on 2 Oct 2021 at the finssage of the exhibition Ecologies & Politics of the Living

‘To even notice third nature, we must evade assumptions that the future is that singular direction ahead’ (Anna Tsing)

Third nature is everything that exists alongside and in the face of the destruction caused by the capitalist exploitation and what creates new synergies and coexistences. It is a moment of awareness of the living activities of all beings and emerges within a temporal polyphony. We translate the concept of third nature by Anna Tsing on an auditory level.

Our understanding of nature has changed over time, as has the soundscape on planet Earth. Natural sounds of non-biological elements such as wind, water or earth movements were thus continuously augmented by the sounds of living organisms like humans and further their technology. With these sound performances we want to take a closer look at our surroundings and soundscapes of today.

Image by ©

Natalia Domínguez Rangel (NL/CO)is composer/sound artist living and working between Vienna and Amsterdam. Her work has been connected with architecture, acoustics, technology and nature. She is interested how sound affects and resonates with a body physiologically and psychologically, and how critical listening deepens, extends and set connections to other acoustic ecologies not only to the anthrophony.

sound performance

21 Oct 2021, 19:00

Sounds of the Living | Part II

Interventions with Noises out of Nature

tàplàlèklànc – feat. Fabian Wutti, Georg Zichy, Lisa-Maria Hollaus

Metal oxide filtered natural tone collection. Enriched with carbon and electrolytes. Improvised processes, structural scheme.

The series of sound interventions at the Otto Wagner Kassenhalle explores the concept of living matter and questions the notion of nature.

wood and green moss | Image by ©

Part II with tàplàlèklànc feat. Fabian Wutti, Georg Zichy, Lisa-Maria Hollaus

Metal oxide filtered natural tone collection. Enriched with carbon and electrolytes. Improvised processes, structural scheme.

Curated by Elisabeth Falkensteiner

sound performance

21 Jan 2022, 19:30

Sounds of the Living Part III
online

The series of sound interventions at the Otto Wagner Kassenhalle explores the concept of living matter and questions the notion of nature.

Live-sets by Angélica Castelló & Christian Schröder - Online stream out of the Kassenhalle / PRELUDE (19.00) The Matter is Melting. Melting down Smart Rainbow 7.0 from Anna Watzinger and Laurus Edelbacher / ending the exhibition ::KAIROS. Recall of Earth.

Stream Link

Sounds of the Living I

Sounds of the Living II

Angelica Castello making music | Image by ©Foto: Martin Gross

SONIC BLUE – Angélica Castelló

Sonic Blue is based on field recordings and sounds from the Lofoten archipelago, an island chain along Norway’s northern coastline starting in February 2013. Angélica Castelló met biologist and bioacoustics researcher Heike Vester, who founded the organization Ocean Sounds, which is dedicated to the research of marine mammals and the protection of the marine environment. The vibrations, caused by underwater detonations of the expanding oil industry, that are reflected back provide information to map the location, density, shape and composition of the rock layers, but they are also a massive intervention in the natural sound world of aquatic life.
With “sonic blue”, the musician creates her own imaginary underwater world that immerses the audience into the great sea of sound produced by her subgreatbass recorder, Castelló’s main instrument. The composition process of this piece is an examination of the profound in yet another respect, for to Angélica Castelló the sea also symbolizes the subconscious.
In 2014, “Sonic Blue” won the Outstanding Artist Award – Interdisciplinarity from the Austrian Federal Ministry for the Arts and Culture

Water Surface, Ocean | Image by ©Foto: A. Castelló

Angélica Castelló is a composer and Sound Artist. Her sound work and compositions concentrates on fragility, dreamworld and the subconscious. Performs continuously solo or in cooperations everywhere between Mexico City and Vienna. Numerous compositions for ensembles, radio works as well as installations that operate at the interface of music, performance and visual arts. Several releases on labels like Interstellar records, Mikroton recordings, Monotype records, Mosz, chamafu nocords, Orlando Records, einklang_records, Mandorla Label, Thalamos, upside down records.

Carsmemory – Christian Schröder

Christian Schröder brings together field recordings of isolated cars at night and digital noise bursts simulating rain. The digitally generated drop sound depicts nature in its hyper-realistic and spatial dimension. The stereo field recordings of the lonely vehicles are collaged into unreal intersections in the 4-channel setup at the Kassenhalle.

Christian Schöder blowing air intensely | Image by ©Foto: C. Schröder

Christian Schröder makes sound and composition tangible and expands them in different media. Since studying sound and media art, composition, electronic music and conceptual art, he has been interested in interdisciplinarity. He works as a sound artist in the visual arts and as a composer and musician in the performing arts. In addition to solo performances, in which algorithmic compositions and improvisations are often used, he often collaborates with artists from different disciplines.

The series of sound interventions at the Otto Wagner Kassenhalle explores the concept of living matter and questions the notion of nature. Curated by Elisabeth Falkensteiner.

sound performance

29 Jun 2022, 19:00

Sounds of the Living IV

Within the Angewandte Festival 2022 - Performance by Paul Ebhart, Pia Palme, Fabian Lanzmaier

The series of sound interventions at the Otto Wagner Kassenhalle explores the concept of living matter and questions the notion of nature.

Paul Ebhart – BEUMA

With Beuma, Paul Ebhart stages the story of a sound researcher who investigates and documents the sonic environment in search of the origin of a creature that is believed to be real. He scours various locations and finds different receivers, through which he captures the noises and sounds. As a kind of intermediary, the scientist sees himself as an explorer of another reality beyond the human one. He is utterly convinced that there is more to be found than what we humans are capable of perceiving.

Image by ©

In his piece BEUMA, Paul Ebhart explores the question of what sonic reality surrounds us and what we perceive as such. Is the pure imagination of sounds capable of shaping our reality and sonic environment or our understanding of the sonic nature?

Pia Palme – In a former Post Office | a performative ecology

a performance ritual, using voice, bass recorder, electronics, video, paper

Consider the old hall: it sounds by itself. In my performance, it is my living collaborator. I ask for permission. It is alive and speaks WITH me. It allows me to project my video onto its surface. The hall performs WITH my instrument, reflecting, resonating, masking sound waves. My voice is WITH the floor, crawling into the basement. No, this is another kind of animism, it is purely scientific thinking. My breath enters my instrument, flows through the big tube and exits through holes and openings. Softly, my sounding breath touches the walls, the columns, and moves up towards the glass ceiling. I listen to its history. We bow to each other.

Image by ©Pia Palme – Credit: Jussi Virkkumaa

Fabian Lanzmaier – renaming bugs

In the live audio work 'renaming bugs' Fabian Lanzmaier is following his interest in audio synthesis and the possibilities to juxtapose ideas of natural / artificial sounds, fluid and ambiguous environments and the mimesis of an organic world. Synthetic voices of different characters and surroundings, strain the imagination of the listener. A maze into surreal structures, in constant movement and disruption.

Image by ©
sound performance

20 Oct 2022, 19:00

Sounds of the Living V

Live Performances by Isabella Forciniti & Benjamin Tomasi

Using the acoustics of Otto Wagner's Kassenhalle, the series of sound interventions at Café Exchange explores the concept of living matter and nature.

More info about the series see here

Our understanding of nature has changed over time, as has the soundscape on planet Earth. Natural sounds of abiotic elements, such as wind, water or earth movements, were thus continuously augmented by the sounds of living organisms like humans or their technology. With these sound performances, we take a closer look at our surroundings and the soundscapes of today.

Image by ©Credit: Maciek Rukasz

Isabella Forciniti

Music for Androids and Sheeps

Technocracy, the human condition.

Empathy, androids and social order. Nuclear wars and animal extinction.

Fanta-sociology and Mars. “Music for Androids and Sheeps” is inspired by Anna Tsing's and Donna J. Haraway's concept of Plantationocene and by the dystopias highlighted in Philipp K. Dick's novel “Do Androids dream of electric Sheep”.

Isabella Forciniti is a Vienna based sound artist from Italy. Her work maneuvers within tensions evoked by the substantial aspects of sound and improvised music. Her intention is to explore deliberate states of sounds through examining relationships among interwoven sound surroundings, informal practice as well as their intrinsic abilities. Her work thrives to release streams of thoughts at the margins of the unknown.

Website

Image by ©Credit: Marlene Schenk

Benjamin Tomasi

Gentle Breeze

With the project "gentle breeze", Benjamin Tomasi deals with the sonic qualities of weather phenomena and their acoustic simulation. Kinetic sculptures form the starting point for an acoustic meditation on a fictitious course of the weather.

The sounds of weather phenomena are not taken from the "real" world but are acoustically recreated.

This synthesized sound, however, is triggered by real objects that are driven by the respective natural phenomena. The perfect mimetic quality of the sounds plays a minor role. The focus is rather on the interplay between the synthetic and natural-sounding parts of the sound material.

Benjamin Tomasi works as an artist between and within the categories of sound art/ composition/performance and visual art.

Website