MY BODY : MY MACHINE

SHAPE Artist-in-Residence Programtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

Sonic Exegesis
Presentation and talk

Yara Mekawei, Ulla Rauter and Hui Ye all three work with that musicality inherent in language. They develop their own compositional means and systems of translation to distil and experience the music of the written text, the abstract sounds in spoken language and the poetry inherent in the technology of speech synthesis. In their current collaboration for the Shape+ residency, they will musically explore various texts, beginning with two excerpts from How to Disappear, a work by Egyptian artist and author Haytham El-Wardany that explores the concept of listening as a form of protest that can be practiced in everyday life.

Ö1 Klassik Treffpunkttermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

ORF live radioshow

ORF musikprotokoll – Echtzeitkunstwelttermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

Echtzeitkunstwelt

Virtual Reality Offline/Online Multiplayer Framework by Dominik Grünbühel, Sebastian Pirch and Norbert Unfug
Duration (installation): approx. 30 min, max. 5 persons per slot

Access with or without reservation possible: musikprotokoll.ORF.at/reservations

ORF musikprotokolltermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

Echtzeitkunstwelt is an online multiplayer framework in VR (Virtual Reality). In the interplay of different art forms (puppet theater, music, dance, visual arts …) the project explores the possibilities of performance and liveness in digital space – always adapted site-specifically. For ORF musikprotokoll, Dominik Grünbühel, Norbert Unfug and Sebastian Pirch expand their real-time art world and build a walk-in musical instrument in VR at esc medien kunst labor. Sounds, beats and samples are physically manipulated with virtual objects and create a choreography: interactive, individual or collective. By looking or moving around the room, visitors can influence the course of the choreography. Knobs that extend throughout the room and buttons that require full physical engagement make making music a physical experience. The online multiplayer function allows people from all over the world to participate.

ORF Long Night of Museums 2022termin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

During the ORF Long Night of Museums 2022, esc medien kunst labor invites visitors to the current exhibition MEIN KOERPER : MEINE MASCHINE.

Large corporations and internet platforms have a massive impact on the representation of our body on the internet as well as on the form and appearance of our virtual body. But it is also the physical body that is the center of interests and the exercise of power. In the current group exhibition MEIN KOERPER : MEINE MASCHINE international artists question in multimedia installations manifestations and effects of self-optimization, genetic engineering, bionics, technical enhancements, chip implants, interfaces etc.

Opening with Mia Zabelka 23.09.2022termin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

Die österreichische Violinistin, Vokalistin und Komponistin Mia Zabelka steht an der Spitze der internationalen elektroakustischen Performancekunst. Sie entwickelte ihre einzigartige Musiksprache in einem Prozess, den sie „automatic playing“ nennt, bei dem die Musik aus ihrem Körper und ihren Gesten heraus entsteht und ihren Ausdruck in ihrer elektrischen Violine mit electronic devices, alien objects, Stimme und/oder akustischer Violine findet. Mit diesem Setup erhält sie die Möglichkeit, das Klangspektrum so sehr zu erweitern, dass die Violine selbst zum Interface, zum elektronischen Klangerzeuger und damit zur Klangmaschine wird. Mia Zabelka hinterfragt diese Form der Interface-Technik mit ihrer Klangkunst und erforscht sie im Hinblick auf ihr Anwendungspotential in der Kommunikation zwischen Mensch und autonomer Maschine; die Koexistenz von Mensch und Maschine in konvergenten Umgebungen wird dem Hören anvertraut.

steirischer herbst – Opening weekendtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

How much is my body still my body, if it ever was?

The human body serves as an attack surface of power, in order to access the subject on the one hand, and the entire society on the other hand, Michel Focault states and describes the reciprocal relationship of usefulness and compliance of the body in a politics of constraints, the human body enters into a machinery of exploitation.

Start into the Autumn Season and Preview: MEIN KOERPER : MEINE MASCHINEtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

How much is my body still my body, if it ever was?

The human body serves as an attack surface of power, in order to access the subject on the one hand, and the entire society on the other hand, Michel Focault states and describes the reciprocal relationship of usefulness and compliance of the body in a politics of constraints, the human body enters into a machinery of exploitation.

Opening with Lisz Hirn MEIN KOERPER : MEINE MASCHINE 23.9.2022termin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

How much is my body still my body, if it ever was?

The human body serves as an attack surface of power, in order to access the subject on the one hand, and the entire society on the other hand, Michel Focault states and describes the reciprocal relationship of usefulness and compliance of the body in a politics of constraints, the human body enters into a machinery of exploitation.

Finissage and prolongation of PERFECT BODY, 29th of Julytermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

We cordially invite you to the finissage of our exhibition PERFECT BODY on Friday, 29.07. from 2 – 7pm..

The visit of PERFECT BODY in the current constellation, including guided tours, is still possible this week, daily in the time from 2 – 7pm.

Afterwards, the installations will be adapted and can be seen during our summer break until August 31 in the extended outdoor space of the esc medien kunst labors in the course of a window tour. Detailed information on the individual works can be accessed via QR codes.

We are looking forward to your visit!

mariia&magdalyna + krkrk: Human? … on the 14th June 2022 at 8pmtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

The esc medien kunst labor warmly invites you to "Human? …" a theatrical and musical fair based on the diaries of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine on June 14, 2022 from 8 pm.

"Human? …" explores what a human being is and how one feels in war. There is an artistic search of actresses mariia&magdalyna together with double bassist and electronic musician krkrk.

The project was born from the need to talk about what is happening to us humans in this war.

Voluntary donation!

Impuls MinuteConcerts, June 25th, 1pmtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

We warmly invite you to an impuls MinuteConcert at esc medien kunst labor on June 25th at 1pm!

We are looking forward to your visit!

With the impuls MinuteConcerts impuls invites to an acoustic as well as visual tour through various galleries in Graz each year. Whether perceived as tryout or as an art course with a duration of more than 12 hours: any approach is possible, the admission free. Experts are welcome and so are the curious ones, passers-by and those, who like to stay, connoisseurs and discoverers, kids, adolescent and grown-ups … everyone is called up to stroll around the City of Graz together with young musicians and composers and experience music, be it classical modern or most recently composed one, at first hand and aside from traditional concert stages. Meet up with artists, gallerists, curators, art lovers and other fellow beings and enjoy music and fine arts in new synergy.

esclab: Network Walktermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

The infrastructure of the internet is being withdrawn from our sight as much as possible. If our telephones make a connection with the internet, what route do the signals take? This walk looks for places where the 'stuff of the net' becomes visible in our direct surroundings. Cables, camera's, antenna's plgs and other things that are stuck away on roofs and facades, in electro gutters, caves and facility lockers. We wonder: what relations are signals and technical infrastructure producing with other bodies, phenomena and inhabitants of the city such as for example: an ivy, a cornerstone, a BMW, pigeons, students, stench and the weather?

Possible Bodies: Volumetric Regimes: a guided tourtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

The esc medien kunst labor invites to join a book presentation and talk about the project Possible Bodies with Femke Snelting (BEL) and Jara Rocha (ESP).

esclab: Feminist Hacking: Building Circuits as an Artistic Practicetermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

The esc medien kunst labor warmly invites you to the next esclab on the 22nd June 2022. 

Stefanie Wuschitz und Patricia J. Reis will present the current outcome of the project Feminist Hacking: Building Circuits as an Artistic Practice. The feedback from the esclab will inform the next phase in which they host a series of workshops on the development and use of feminist hardware.

About the project:

The project aims to establish feminist hacking as a strategy and method for emancipation in the field of art, science and technology.

The project addresses the disbalance in presence and engagement of women* and non-binary artists. This bias is ubiquitously present in the field of media art, where male artists have received significantly more recognition than their female and queer peers. The project proposes to examine the potential of feminist hacking and feminist hardware as a medium of diversified artistic expression.

The project uses feminist hacking as art-based research method in order to enable female* artists to develop their own tools, aware of intersectional forms of discrimination. The final stage of our project will hopefully give an answer to the question: what is feminist hardware? We will observe how feminist hacking informs art practice and how it helps to envision, conceptualize and make different kinds of art. We intentionally create a collaborative environment in which unorthodox alliances can emerge.

We are a group of female* artist researchers that will intervene in the hardware production cycle by connecting with ethical hardware manufacturers. We will work in a systematic manner with manufacturers who are specialized in open and ethical hardware enabling production to be conducted in mindful architecture. In a first phase specific tools for media art projects will be developed taking into account fair modes of hardware production and its future open access and modification (licensed as open hardware). In a second phase, the hardware will be used and implemented during artist residencies at our national collaboration partner Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory.

The feedback from the esclab will inform the next phase in which we host a series of workshops on the development and use of feminist hardware. Finally, we will publish extensively on documentation of our research process, focusing on the collaboration with ethical manufacturers demonstrating the particularities of the feminist hardware we developed in the form of an exhibition.

Open music: Solo-Actstermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

 The esc medien kunst labor cordially invites you to a concert in the context of Open music!

How can performers get in touch with their audience in a world of high-quality digital music reproduction? Why do we need a performance at all, when we can stop and start, listen to and re-listen to perfect sounding recordings from all over the world at the click of a mouse, through loudspeaker systems that reproduce instruments in every detail? Today's recorded music certainly provides much more space for viewing and understanding a musical work than a live performance ever could. To explore the enduring power of live performance and to consider the physical nature of the performer, I commissioned pieces from composers whose work encompasses both the musical and the physical. In this regard, Jennifer Walshe and Simon Steen-Andersen are two of the most exciting composers writing for notes and bodies, bringing the notion of performance and physicality back into the framework of live music making. (A.B.)

Andreas Borregaard studied with James Crabb at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. From 2010 he taught there himself, and since 2017 at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He is active in many diverse projects, formations and genres (Quintet MTQ, Duo Inviolata, Trio Gáman, Stormglas), in which collaboration with contemporary composers and the associated expansion of instrumental possibilities and repertoire for the accordion play a central role.

Moldovan-born accordionist Ghenadie Rotari (who studied in Trieste, Munich and at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki) also has a clear focus on contemporary music, and has also attracted attention with projects such as the "Quarantine diaries" on Instragram, which present short pieces he commissioned during the pandemic, and the "Everything Accordion" podcast, which includes interviews and talks with fellow accordionists. As a "solo act," he complements Andreas Borregard's performative program with a piece for talking accordionist written for him by Matthew Shlomowitz. This explores the question of whether musical languages/systems reflect the political systems under which they are written.

TICKETS

Reservations Corona conditional cordially requested. For more information click here.

€ 16 | € 11* | € 6**

* Pupils, students, military/civil servants and unemployed persons with valid ID card

** Music students with valid ID at the box office as well as children up to 10 years of age

*** Free admission for Hunger for Art & Culture at the evening box office from 15 minutes before the concert begins

Evening box office
The evening box office opens 30 minutes before the concert begins

Open music: Time Slice Transmittertermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

The esc medien kunst labor invites you to the concert "Time Slice Transmitter" in the context of Open music!

With "Time Slice Transmitter", "open music" is launching a "hybrid music" project series initiated not least because of the ongoing pandemic, which stimulates new compositions and performances per se as hybrid formats. The programs are thus not only developed for a live concert, but also emerge, for example, as an interactive website or radio art.

"Time Slice Transmitter" is a 35-part composition for six-string electronic violin. All are invited to arrange their own versions of this work online by interactively modifying various sound and image shapes – from short looped fragments to polyphonic passages.

In contrast to conventional time-based formats, such as film, book, or record, a software-based interface is neither static nor linearly fixed. The virtual environment enables structures whose semantics can be generated or modified directly by the user on the basis of computer programs. Reading, speaking, writing, listening coincide in a single performative act. "Time Slice Transmitter" makes targeted use of precisely these medial properties: individual tracks can be played and stopped on the website at the click of a mouse. Simultaneous playback of the tracks allows for any number of sound variations, so that each user interacts to create an individual audio collage. 

This variable superimposition of individual components also determines the visual implementation: each audio track is assigned the video recording of the instrumentalist, of which only a narrow horizontal section can be seen in each case, which serves as an interaction surface, among other things. The video strips arranged one below the other on the screen thus result in a fluid mosaic of the depicted body, whose fragmented physicality represents, as it were, the translation of an auditory as well as digital simultaneity into the visual. 

As an instrument in a live performance, the web version is spun on by two performers, counterpointed and accumulated with new material.

TICKETS
 

Online version: Free

Live version: Reservations Corona conditionally cordially requested. For more information please click here.

€ 16 | € 11* | € 6**

* Pupils, students, military/civilian servants and unemployed with valid ID card

** Music students with valid ID at the box office as well as children up to 10 years of age

*** Free admission for Hunger for Art & Culture at the evening box office from 15 minutes before the concert begins

Evening box office
The evening box office opens 30 minutes before the concert begins

Guided Tour PERFECT BODY 14. Mai, 13.30 Uhrtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

Opening PERFECT BODY 13. Mai, 5pmtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

In keeping with the ideas and promises of Futurism, Marinetti still envisages predominantly positive things when he writes about the technical possibilities of bodily extensions and expansions. Today, it is above all the media productions on internet platforms that, in the course of obsessive optimisation efforts and permanent (self-)measurements, blind us to the status change of the body to object, to capital.

We train, repair, rehabilitate, model, beautify and mechanise our bodies through cosmetics, fitness programmes, supplements and medicines, surgical interventions, prostheses, implants, computer-brain interfaces and other technical enhancements. The effort and the results are constantly being recorded by a wide variety of programmes and applications, and the data is made readily available to the data-processing industries. Under their influence, the pressure to invest in our "body capital" in a self-responsible way is increasing, non-compliance is met with sanctions. The interventions have long since also affected our cognition and our emotion. Michel Foucault's finding about the reciprocal relationship between the usefulness and compliance of the body in a politics of constraints is being put into practice today as corporate politics: the human body enters into a machinery of exploitation that penetrates, dissects and reassembles it.

We should be aware of who is pursuing what interests and who is reaping the greatest profits from all the beautiful and new possibilities of optimising and perfecting the body when the view of the changes in our body, our thoughts and emotions is softened by the filters of fascination and erotic attraction.

Long Waves Scan Konzertperformance, 13. Mai, 17 Uhrtermin

Ort: [esc] medien kunst labor

"Radio was heard before it was invented"
Douglas Kahn in Earth Sound Earth Signal, University of California Press, 2013

Before the invention of radio and electromagnetic wave theory, Thomas Watson spent time at night listening to the sounds "produced by the telephone" when no one was connected. Later we will understand that electricity travels through the air and that these sounds are natural radio waves heard through the long power lines that act as an antenna.

Long Waves scan is part of this practice of listening to radio signals blindly. It is a performance that uses a radio set as the only sound source during which live frequencies are sculpted by a set of sound effects.

We do not listen much to voice and music, but rather to radio noises, electrical buzzes and other parasitic signals whose richness and finesse are revealed through a work of sound sculpture.

First, the frequencies that pass through the site are scanned to identify interesting sounds, then they are used as the sound source for a set of effects that modify their timbre and temporal structure. The public witnessed the gradual transformation of these sounds into music thanks to this radio set that became a synthesizer.