SANATORIUM DŹWIĘKU 2014
The upcoming season in Sokołowsko’s sanatorium will be marked by innovative treatment with cold and hot sounds, sticks and stones, in the cinema and outdoors. Dry Mountain Orchestra conducted by Keith Rowe and Gerard Lebik will be working with conceptual scores by Christian Wolff, searching for the key to contemporary interpretation of experimental music. sanatory17 – an exhibition developed by Viennese artists Klaus Filip and Noid – will present contemporary trends in European sound art, while the starting point of Cinema Surroundings program curated by Michał Libera is the sound in film and its problematic status. Sanatorium Dźwięku launched in 2015 in Sokołowsko is a festival dedicated to contemporary experimental music and sound art. Its main objective is to present the phenomena and trends in the 20th and 21st centuries, maintaining the balance between traditions of experimental music and the new, still structureless tendencies. The program of this year’s edition rests on a few masts, and the clutter of ladders, sails and ropes spread between them presents the experienced audience with the most breakneck transitions and knots.
One of the pillars of the upcoming edition is doubtlessly sanatory17, a review of the newest sound art – often site-specific, resulting from artistic residencies preceding the festival organized in collaboration with AIR Wro. Thus, the ruins of the former Brehmer’s Sanatorium will house Ryoko Akama’s sound installation Objects migration 01, dedicated to this unique space. In his work It Lives on a Farm, Julien Ottavi will provide the plants as well as their electric activity with sound using specially transformed piezoelectric cells, while in Ghost Hunter he will attempt to take hold of elusive sound. In TACET, Ulla Rauter searches for silence in metropolitan noise, while the work façade scan translates wall structures into music scores. Imaginary Habitat by Ute Wasserman is an entire ecosystem of objects resonating on membranes of speakers, while Tuning by Boris Baltschun and Serge Baghdassarians will confront video wit h a balloon and steady tones with glissando in the ruins of the sanatorium. Finally, Christine Schörkhuber has decided to challenge the burning issue of migration and relocation in her work We Arrived on the Dark Side of Europe: The Tents of Idomeni, an installation consisting of tents and sound narrative. All works explore recurring themes of silence and suppression, sounds and voices unheard or inaudible, as well as relations between an object, image and sound, which constitutes the rope tied to the neighboring mast of the program.
That other pillar of Sanatorium Dźwięku is film theme, introduced on the occasion of recent full refurbishment of Zdrowie Cinema. Cinema Surroundings program comprises three loosely connected events, the common denominator of which is sound in film and its problematic status. Emphysema by Michał Libera and Barbara Kinga Majewska is based on Josephine, the Singer or the Mouse Folk, the last short story written by Franz Kafka and on the sanatorium cases of tuberculosis. Łukasz Jastrubczak and Henryk Zastróżny will appear as pianists accompanying a non-existent movie, referring to the famous experiment by Walter Ruttmann Wochenende. Hilary Jeffery, Giedon Kiers and Zsolt Sőrés in Inconsolable Ghost – Sokołowsko Channelling will try to redefine the concept of ‘expanded cinema’ through occultism and paranormal phenomena. Also Piotr Tkacz will return to the history of Zdrowie Cinema and Sokołowsko in his 3-channel installation Kino Pamięci. In Fragments of an Unfinished Tale (A Cinematic Story), Alfredo Costa Monteirio will mix soundtracks from 70 films made in the countries of the Eastern Bloc, while Daniel Muzyczuk will analyze the already classic experiments by Ken Jacobs and Michael Snow.
Cinema is, after all, a fusion of sound and image, an optical illusion, magic of light and movement. It is no wonder, then, that the relation between audio and video constitutes another import_ant part of this year’s program. Phil Niblock will perform live mix of his field recordings to improvised film editing by Katherine Liberovskaya. Noid and Klaus Filip (the curators of sanatory17 exhibition) in their Photophon bring the pioneering experiments with optosonic synthesizers into the DIY era. Another audiovisual duo is Saturn 3, combining electromagnetic music by Łukasz Szałankiewicz and sound machines by Arthur Donovan. Actions bordering on installation and concert include the work by Lucio Capece, who returns to the park at night, like he did during last year’s Sanatorium Dźwięku. This time, between after parties and before dawn, at the small lake, he will present minimalist
A Perceptual Ecosystem of sine waves and strobe lights, triggered by movement of the audience. Meanwhile, Marek Chłoniewski uses the movement of thought itself, that is brain waves, to operate his audiovisual performance Cymatic Brain.
This year’s festival is of course also about concerts; also this form, however, tends to be questioned and challenged. For example by Alfredo Costa Monteiro and his 8-hour, all-night performance A Halo of Light Surrounded by Darkness or by Marcin Barski with his radio project Wanda’s Dream. One of this year’s highlights will certainly be the performance by a duo of two legends of free improv, that is John Tilbury on piano and Keith Rowe on amplified guitar and other objects. The latter, together with the festival’s curator Gerard Lebik, will also perform as the leader of Dry Mountain Orchestra composed of musicians participating in the festival. Together, they will interpret open scores by Christian Wolff: Sticks, Stones and Edges, which is a part of the Sokołowsko’s endeavors to return to the traditions of experimental music. Julia Eckhardt on alto will perform the piece OCCAM IV, co-written during multiple sessions with the master composer Éliane Radigue herself. The theme of continuous deconstruction, negotiation and creation of the canon will be continued during morning lectures and discussion panels: Daniel Brożek will talk about the tradition of sound art and Jan Topolski will raise the subject of electronic music in former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Afterparties at night will help you think everything through or forget it; the musical setting will be provided by DJ Dwie Lewe Ręce and DJ Morgiana (za duszno events) and Bartosz Zaskórski (Pointless Geometry).
Idea: Gerard Lebik, Zuzanna Fogtt
Text elabotate: Jan Topolski
For the third time Wrocław 2016 Office is continuing its cooperation with the Contemporary Art Foundation In Situ in the framework Artist In Residence Programme AIR Wro. This year it resulted in a joint invitation of international sound artists to come to Sokołowsko for a series of study visits. A-i-R Sanatorium of Sound is a residency project for composers, improvisers and sound artists and it was launched by In Situ last year. Artists usually present their works, installations and compositions during Sanatorium of Sound Festival in Sokołowsko and during this edition these wil be Ryoko Akama, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Klaus Filip and Noid.
Last year the cooperation between the Contemporary Art Foundation In Situ and Artist In Residence Programme AIR Wro resulted in inviting eight artists working in the field of sound art, new media and performance (i.e. Martin Howse, Keith Rowe, Mario de Vega and Alessandro Bosetti).
