kubus
performance, concert, installation

fri. 27. oct. to sun. 05 nov. 2006 | tues. to sun. | 6:00 to 10:00 pm

paul demarinis [usa]:

the messenger

installation

opening: thurs. 26. oct. | 6:00 pm


the interactive installation, the messenger, is based on early proposals for the electronic telegraph, in particular those made by the catalan doctor and naturalist francisco salvá. as 'receiver' for his telegraph, salvá designated 26 servants. when 'stimulated' by an electric shock, each called out one letter of the transmitted message, which was thus gradually revealed to the listener.

email messages sent from around the world are received by a computer and spelled out, one letter at a time, by three fanciful telegraph receivers: a circular array of 26 talking chamber pots speaks out the letters in 26 different voices. another receiver is made up of a chorus line of 26 little dancing skeletons. each wears a tiny poncho emblazoned with a letter of the alphabet. when each letter of a message is activated, the skeleton jumps, producing a danse macabre as the email messages roll off the internet.
the third telegraphic receiver is a line of 26 antique glass jars, each filled with an electrolyte and representing one letter of the alphabet, which glows colorfully when stimulated by an electronic impulse and a chemical reaction.

the system can neither save nor process the messages. unless the signals are observed, written down and interpreted, the installation is the final meaningless terminus for messages that have travelled around the world and died. the machine becomes an allegory for fleeting communication and the forgotten.

for this installation, paul demarinis was awarded this year's prix ars electronica in the category interactive art.

thanks to the ok center for contemporary art, linz and the aec.

thurs. 09. nov. 2006 | 6:00 pm

em-hören at tesla

with this edition of em-hören, the traditional thursdays-series of the tu berlin takes place at tesla for the first time. the american violinist eric rynes plays compositions for violin with tape, and with live electronics from kotoka suzuki, michael alcorn and others.


fri. 10. nov. 2006 | 8:30 pm

em-konzert at tesla

the concert of electroacoustic multi-channel compositions presents three german premières by composers with non-academic backgrounds: sound and light artists hans peter kuhn, adam donovan, and robert henke [monolake]. the latter produced his studies for thunders in the electronic studio of the tu berlin. the australian artist adam donovan is currently working in the context of a project residence at tesla.

sat. 11. nov. 2006 | 8:30 pm

deutsch für ausländer

multi-track voice composition by uwe mengel.

in a random selection, questions posed by the judges, attorneys, and defenders in peter weiss' documentary piece about the auschwitz court case were excerpted and individually recorded. foreigners were invited into the recording studio to speak the texts, on condition that they have little or no competence in the german language and no professional experience in the performing arts. speakers were from france, england, argentina, the usa, new zealand, india, russia, canada, and poland, plus a few 12 year-old berlin school children, who were still oblivious to the subject of fascism. non-interpretation was the goal.

fri. 17. nov. 2006 | 8:30 pm

werkstatt_klangapparate 1:

talking machine

soundperformance with steve roden and martin riches.

'i spent a week with martin riches, looking for ways in which the talking machine could perform both abstract and constantly repeating actions. the idea was to use the machine not as an speaking apparatus, but rather as a wind instrument. it may also be that we just taught the talking machine another language. we experimented with the voice of the machine, and with the percussive sounds formed by its own movement. roland pfrengle designed an interface for the machine, which allows the performer to control the machine's movements.'
[steve roden]

supported by the hauptstadtkulturfonds.

sat. 18. nov. 2006 | 8:30 pm

werkstatt_klangapparate 2:

thilges trautonium

sound performance with nik hummer and gammon.

with guest: wolfgang müller with the trautonium 2000.

the musician oskar sala is almost singularly responsible for the renown of the trautonium, developed by friedrich trautwein around 1930. thilges' study on the sound machine trautonium deals exclusively with its sound production: the original trautonium was built using discoveries from tone color theory to create individual and characteristic sounds. the tone colors are formed through the mixture of subharmonic vibrations. thilges forms their tone colors on the basis of a four-fold subharmony. unlike sala's trautonium, the mixtures do not take place inside the apparatus, but rather through the multi-channel sound in the space. the spatial conduct of the sounds in relation to one another determines the sound quality. the location becomes part of the machine.

supported by the hauptstadtkulturfonds. with the kind support from doepfer musikelektronik.

with the project werkstatt_klangapparate, tesla fosters a new artistic treatment of historical sound machines. each apparatus holds potential well beyond its classic definition as instrument, sound producer, or sound object.

thurs. 23. and fri. 24. nov. 2006 | 6:00 - 12:00 pm | sat. 25. nov. 2006 | 3:00 - 15:00 pm

der domestizierte blitz

sonarc::ema -- radial / sonarc::ion -- prologue

jan-peter e.r. sonntag

salon | symposium | installation | performance | conference

electricity is the most important medium in the world for the transfer of energy and communication, and yet, its nature is practically unknown. we are surrounded by electric and electronic tools. they connect and divide the world and technically determine our way of life. coded and uncoded electromagnetic waves are all around us, electric circuits become ever smaller and have reached into every area of life. human beings can themselves be described as partially electrical systems, as the processing of neuronal information is based on electric impulses. in 1924, hans berger was the first to prove the electrical activity of the brain, and beginning in 1966, the official definition of death is no longer cardiac arrest, but electrical inactivity in the brain.

in the spatial center of the kubus, where the 'opera' sonarc::ion -- prologue had its premiere a year ago, stands this year's sonarc::ema -- radial, an interactive and purely electric/electronic installation comprised of four differently encoded electromagnetic fields, radial hertz waves. as in the etherophone, the participants more or less wirelessly distort a field and surf solitarily through the signals and noise of the ether. two moldable high-frequency high-voltage plasmas of two tesla coils emit the movement as sound.
the context is a program of three electric salons on three days, lectures, performances, films and discussions about lightening and thunder, the ionosphere, wave machines, electricity in medicine since the 18th century, the apparatus and visions of electronic music, nikola tesla's ideas of the era of media, electricity and the occult, electric transcommunication and the ether.

with wolfgang ernst, wolfgang hagen, carl michael von hauswolff, verena kuni, michael krause, friedrich kittler, ana ofak, marica radojcic, n-solab, heinz schott, heinz otto sibum, joachim stange-elbe, joseph weizenbaum, henry westphal and many more.

www.sonarc-ion.de

supported by the hauptstadtkulturfonds and the program kultur 2000 of the european commission.

thurs. 30. nov. 2006 | 6:00 pm | dokumentary

em-hören at tesla

musik für 1000 finger -- der komponist conlon nancarrow

documentary film by hanne kaisi and uli aumüller [br / wdr 1993] with discussion afterwards.

thurs. 07. dec. to thurs. 21. dez. 2006 | tues. to sat. | 6:00 to 10:00 pm

opening on thurs. 07. dec. | 8:30 pm

nevel

installation by lawrence malstaf [b]

nevel is a movable labyrinth of large transparent screens. they can rotate freely on an axis and react to the presence of the viewer. they guide his way through the room. architecture comes alive, walls become doors, spaces open and close themselves. visitors and their shadows become part of a tableau vivant. the room itself becomes actor, its passage becomes a choreography.

in his spaces for meg stuart's rotterdam highway 101, lawrence malstaf also brought objects to life. his interest there was not in the meaning of the objects themselves, but in the confrontations which they provoked.

thurs. 07. dec. to thurs. 21. dec. 2006 | tues. to sat. | 6:00 to 10:00 pm | stairwell and kubus hallway

opening: thurs. 07. dec. | 8:30 pm

[das adventspendel]

installation and mobile by jo fabian [d]

the nativity play split into two spatially separated images -- a time pendulum that can only be experienced through one's own travel back and forth -- two motives of force-feeding -- between care and machine, feeling and reason. connected to one another and repulsed by one another -- in this dance, one is likely to miss a beat -- how natural does this connection appear to us?

both works are presented by tesla in the context of tanz made in berlin -- a production of tanznacht berlin 2006.