Afroditi Psarra
Ventriloquist Ontology

featuring Tingyi Jiang
Duration 20΄

The Ventriloquist Ontology project explores the elements of hybridization and the limits of control between the human and the machine through the relationship of a performer with a wearable entity. This soft, modular, ventriloquist entity speaks through a text generated using the GPT-2 language model, which is trained on a dataset of texts on biopolitics, algorithmic governance, body surveillance, and queer theory.
In Afroditi Psarra’s words: “The continuous implementation of AI and ML systems in all areas of technological artifacts, including art, is challenging the ways in which we understand the world around us and urge us to consider other-than-human entities and ‘objects’ as equally important as human beings. In an exploration of such philosophical ideas that stem from the realms of Posthumanism, Actor-Network Theory, and Object-Oriented Ontology, I propose the creation of a modular wearable object, trained using Natural Language Processing, to create its own personality that manifests in the form of speech and movement actuation.”

Afroditi Psarra concept, electronics • Tingyi Jiang performance

Afroditi Psarra is a transdisciplinary artist and Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts. She is interested in the use of the body as an interface of control, and the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects. She uses cyber crafts and other gendered practices as speculative strings, and open-source technologies as knowledge-diffusing educational models.
Her work has been presented at international media art festivals (Ars Electronica, Transmediale and CTM, Eyeo, Amber, Piksel, and WRO Biennale etc) and published at conferences (Siggraph, ISWC – International Symposium of Wearable Computers, DIS – Designing Interactive Systems, C&C – Creativity and Cognition, and EVA – Electronic Visualization and the Arts).

https://afroditipsarra.com

Tingyi Jiang is a visual artist and performer based in The Hague. She composes different media, material, space and herself to create particular situations, self-directing environments, which trigger the audience’s actions. She challenges the art-and-spectator relationships by creating a viewing-in-action experience that explores the dynamics between the individual, the environment, the collectivities, and the social system.

https://tingyijiang.com

Orestis Karamanlis & Giorgos Gargalas
BitVox

Duration 15΄

A work for beatboxer and live electronics running in the SuperCollider programming language; audio events received from the microphone are analyzed and rhythmic patterns are algorithmically processed by the computer in an attempt to create a unified sonic world between the human beatboxer and his electronic counterpart.

Orestis Karamanlis live electronics, Giorgos Gargalas beatboxing

Orestis Karamanlis has completed his PhD on electroacoustic composition and since then has been active in composing music and teaching in the academia. He has produced a diverse body of sound-art and new media work -putting particular emphasis on the combination of acoustic instruments and computers, algorithmic composition, and multi-speaker systems- and often performs in concert venues and urban spaces. He teaches creative classes in the Department of Music Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and is a visiting fellow at Bournemouth University.

http://orestiskaramanlis.net

Giorgos Gargalas works as a sound artist and performer. Focusing on sound, his work explores the relationship between contemporary music and video art, installations, and performance art.

https://giorgosgargalas.tumblr.com

Sote & Tarik Barri
Majestic Noise

Duration 45΄

In their new collaboration, developed during the pandemic isolation of 2020 and 2021, Sote and Tarik Barri (known for his collaborations with musicians like Monolake, Thom Yorke, Paul Jebanasam, and Nicolas Jaar) create mesmerizing audio-visual worlds that, despite their high level of abstraction, convey an inescapable visceral and symbolic force. Whether it is because of tyranny on domestic or global scales, or the isolation and loss that has spread hand in hand with the virus, the theme of isolation has been felt deeply in the artists’ lives. The subjective experience thereof is what is expressed here: isolation as aggression, as sadness, as resignation, and as insanity, merged with beauty and hope as the longing for that which we wish to embrace, however obscured, remains the engine that moves us forward. Sote and Tarik Barri portray these feelings from their own perspectives as well as how they have witnessed their manifestation in fellow humans, victims, oppressors, loved ones and lost ones alike.

Sote live electronics, Tarik Barri live visuals

Ata Ebtekar aka Sote is an electronic music composer and sound artist based in Tehran. Over the last two decades, he has published his work via established labels such as Warp, Sub Rosa, Opal Tapes, Morphine, Repitch, and Diagonal, among others. In 2018 he founded his own label, Zabte Sote, which functions as a sub-label of Opal Tapes, and focuses on works by Iranian experimental electronic composers. With projects that venture into hardcore club sounds, collaborations merging (traditional) acoustic and electronic instrumentation and solo experimental electronics, Sote is equally at home in concert halls, galleries, or clubs. He is always on the lookout for new challenges, special proposals or commissions that invite forays into new creative territories.

http://www.sotesound.com

Born in Holland and currently based in Berlin, Tarik Barri uses tools like Max/MSP, Java, and Supercollider for audiovisual solo projects and striking live visuals for a range of internationally successful musicians. He develops his own software for audiovisual performance and composition, searching for new synergies and aesthetics in the combination of image and sound. Barri has performed and displayed works at DEMF, Sonic Acts, Ars Electronica, CTM Festival, TodaysArt, Berlin Atonal, MIT Media Lab, and EMPAC. He has also served as a guest lecturer at Berklee College of Music (Boston), CCRMA (San Francisco), and Universität der Künste (Berlin).

http://tarikbarri.nl

Nene H & Ensemble Basiani
Chela
Duration 50΄

How can one weave together two seemingly disparate music styles, namely avant-garde techno with polyphonic Georgian singing? Beste Aydin a.k.a. Nene H, “one of the most exciting new faces in Berlin’s ever-expanding experimental club circuit” (Crack Magazine) is set to give the answer to this question alongside the Ensemble Basiani. The Istanbul-born classically trained pianist and composer, who has also explored experimental sounds over the years, joins forces with the internationally acclaimed national choir of Georgia, Ensemble Basiani, celebrated for their contributions to the revival of traditional polyphonic Georgian music. Together they present the new work Chela, which was premiered in front of a sold-out-audience in Berghain at CTM Festival 2020.
In Nene H’s own words: “Chela is a piece for live electronics and nine-men choir. My aim was to emphasize fundamental elements of these contemporary and historical genres, let both materials evolve with each other, develop a new and unique sonic structure and create a ritualistic, intense aural scenery. The whole piece spirals around the Georgian ancient chants, haunting mysterious melodies and electronics that create raw obscure atmosphere, and distorted rhythmic patterns. Composing this piece has a genuine artistic point, it is just there to bring these the worlds together. It is purely and only about the musical expression and nothing else.”

Nene H live electronics • Ensemble Basiani vocals

Emerging from a primarily classical background, Turkish artist Nene H’s transition from skilled pianist to one of the most intriguing and experimental talents in underground techno continues at pace. Alumnus of Creative Europe’s SHAPE platform for innovative music and art, Nene H’s approach to production and performance has so far been a psychedelic and assured journey, with Crack Magazine declaring her as “one of the most exciting new faces on Berlin’s ever-expanding experimental club circuit…”
Having debuted on Bedouin Records with the Metacommunication EP, Nene H has since made her sound known on a selection of the most forward-thinking and distinctive imprints in contemporary dance music, such as Eotrax, Don’t Be Afraid, and Intrepid Skin. This particular blend of the avant-garde, as seen from the perspectives of two different scenes, lends Nene H’s music a personal edge, one able to bridge a new wave of radical energy in alternative club spaces with a background and education she is free to embrace or subvert.

https://linktr.ee/nene_h

Ensemble Basiani – The State Ensemble of Georgian Folk Singing
George Donadze, Zurab Tskrialashvili, Zura Mamukelashvili, Irakli Tkvatsiria, Tornike Papidze, Giorgi Khunashvili, Zviad Michilashvili, Lasha Metreveli, Batu Lominadze

Ensemble Basiani was created in 2000 and, since its inception, has been actively involved in the promotion of Georgian traditional polyphony. The ensemble has travelled to different regions of Georgia in expeditions and concerts, restored and revived many forgotten examples of folk songs and church hymns, participated in renowned festivals and symposia, and held concerts in many international prestigious concert halls and universities. Parallel to its traditional orientation, Basiani implements periodically various avant-garde projects in which Georgian folklore merges with contemporary music. From 2012 to 2018, together with Giorgi Mikadze, a Georgian pianist working in the US, Basiani implemented the projects Voisa and Georgian Overtones and successfully presented them in Beijing, Berlin, New York, and Tbilisi. The ensemble has recorded up to 300 examples of traditional songs and hymns included in different albums which are distributed all over the world.

http://basiani.ge