ISM Hexadome

Immersive Sound & 360° Visual Exhibition

Martin-Gropius-Bau 29 March — 22 April 2018

Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin
INTRODUCTION SCHEDULE

The Institute for Sound and Music is a community-driven initiative with the
long-term goal of establishing a permanent museum in Berlin dedicated to 29 March - 30 March 18:00 - 22.00 18 April 20:00 - 20:45
sound, art, and electronic music culture.
Brian Eno Installation Ben Frost & MFO Live performance
In order to bridge a gap in the current art and cultural landscape, where
the medium of sound is underappreciated as an art form, ISM proposes the
development of a space specially designed and built for nurturing the
disciplines of sound and electronic music. 31 March - 1st April 10:00 - 22.00 18 April 21:00 - 21:45

As cities grow with incredible speed, the music venues are vulnerable to Brian Eno Installation Ben Frost & MFO Live performance
change—they close and disappear over time, leaving no further access to
revisit the experiences that stand for an intangible heritage of a place and
of its community.
2 April - 5 April 18:00 - 22.00 20 April 20:00 - 21:30
Berlin, arguably the world’s epicenter of sound and electronic music,
deserves a lasting tribute to this art form—a place to preserve electronic Brian Eno Installation Peter van Hoesen & Heleen Blanken, Live Performance
music as a living heritage and to serve the development of contemporary CAO & Micheal Tan
sound art practices, a place that both honors the idea of a museum and
expands its boundaries through unique architecture and its approach to
research, cultivation, discourse, and presentation. 6 April 20:00 - 21.30
20 April 22:00 - 23:30
The core team is a community of dedicated volunteers, living in Berlin, Holly Herdon & Mathew Dryhurst, Live Performance
working in the field of sound, art, and technology, who share the common Tarik Barri Peter van Hoesen & Heleen Blanken, Live Performance
goal of creating a permanent space for sound and human experience, Cao & Micheal Tan
immersive art, technology (science), and electronic music.

We have an extended board of 24 members that act as advisors and 6 April 22:00 - 23:30
experts, recognized for their contribution in several areas of art and 21 April 10:00 - 22:00
technology. Holly Herdon & Mathew Dryhurst, Live Performance
Tarik Barri Ben Frost & MFO, Holly Herndon & Installation
This exhibition is an attempt to answer the following questions: “With Mathew Dryhirst, CAO & Michael Tan,
access to the latest technology, in a space worthy of the finest exhibitions Peter van Hoesen & Heleen Blanken
Berlin has to offer, what would this look like, and how would it sound? How
can we create the clearest possible channel between immersive artists 7 April - 8 April 10:00 - 22:00
operating in this field and their audience?”
Tarik Barri & Thom Yorke, René Löwe Installation 22 April 10:00 - 19:00
The ISM Hexadome comprises 6 screens arranged in a hexagonal dome & Pfadfinderei
structure with advanced laser projectors in synchronization with a Ben Frost & MFO, Holly Herndon & Installation
52-channel spatial speaker system. Mathew Dryhirst, CAO & Michael Tan,
Peter van Hoesen & Heleen Blanken
Nine performances and installations have been conceived exclusively for 13 April 20:00 - 21.30
the ISM Hexadome by international sound and visual artists. The exhibition
premieres on 29 March and runs until 22 April, 2018, in Berlin. Lara Sarkissian & Jemma Woolmore, Live Performance
Frank Bretscheider & Pierce Warnecke 22 April 20:00 - 20:45

René Löwe & Pfadfinderei Live Performance

13 April 22:00 - 23.30

Lara Sarkissian & Jemma Woolmore, Live Performance 22 April 21:00 - 21:45
Frank Bretscheider & Pierce Warnecke
René Löwe & Pfadfinderei Live Performance

14 April - 15 April 10:00 - 22.00

Lara Sarkissian & Jemma Woolmore, Installation

Frank Bretscheider & Pierce Warnecke
 BRIAN ENO BEN FROST & MFO
EMPTY FORMALISM

Photo: Salar Kheradpejouh

Spatialized deconstructions of material from the 2016 “The Centre

Photo: Shamil Tanna Born in 1980 in Melbourne, Australia, Cannot Hold” recording sessions form the backbone of Frost’s
Ben Frost relocated to Reykjavík, Iceland, work for Hexadome. The piece is a document of an event, of a
in 2005. Working closely with friends room, and of the composer within it. It is music that is not fully
Valgeir Sigurðsson and Nico Muhly, he controlled and appears to be anxiously, often violently competing
formed the Bedroom Community record against its creator.
A few years ago I was at a painting show with a friend of mine. He label/collective.
was critical of the work. He said, “Well, it’s just empty formalism isn’t Brian Eno is an English musician,
it?” I thought, “Yes, it is. And actually that’s what I like—empty composer, record producer, singer, Frost’s work juxtaposes music, rhythm,
formalism. Like music...” writer, and visual artist. He is best technology, the body, performance, text,
known for his pioneering work in art, beauty, and violence, combining and
It’s funny that visual art is expected to have some sort of decodable ambient music and contributions to coalescing the roles and procedures of
message, to be translatable into words (which is what art critics rock, pop, electronic, and generative various artistic disciplines.
think their job is), whereas nobody expects that of music. Music has music. A self-described “non-musician,”
always been a completely abstract art form and nobody minds. It Eno has helped to introduce a variety of Marcel Weber is a visual artist who
never had a figurative life: there was never a form of music that unique conceptual approaches and works with imagery, light and space. He
painted sound-pictures of landscapes or nude torsos or groups of recording techniques into contemporary has been directing and producing
peasants in villages. music, advocating a methodology of audiovisual performances, stage designs,
“theory over practice” throughout his video works and installations since 2001.
Whereas people will say of an abstract painting “What’s it meant to career. Weber’s performances are concerned
be? What does it mean?” they never ask the same questions about with memory and perception, identity
music. Music is what it is, and you either like it or you don’t. You formation and dissolution – particularly
don’t have to “understand it.” Nobody ever said of a Roy Orbison in the context of possible futures and
song, or a Mozart sonata: “I don’t understand it, I don’t know what their underlying mythologies.
it’s supposed to mean.” It is what it is, and its “meaning”—whatever
that word means—is its effect on you. His work is marked by a well-defined
and distinctive aesthetic, using images
This show is a version of empty formalism. By that I mean that the that both resonate with and form a
work is closer to the history of music than to the history of painting relationship to sound. Applying to visuals
or sculpture. the musical language, with its ability to
shape emotional worlds, an ethereal
quality emerges, brought to life by his
passion for experimental narratives.
 FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER &
CAO & MICHAEL TAN PIERCE WARNECKE
The Burial Theme: trans-matter port and objects APPROXIMATE ACCURACY

Photo: Stini Roehrs Photo: Sylvia Steinhaeuser

Inspired by ancient Moche iconography and cosmology, the work Approximate Accuracy is a hybrid audio-visual installation/
explores the dualities of life/death, generation/destruction, and Constanza Bizraelli aka CAO is a Frank Bretschneider is a musician, performance especially designed for the ISM Hexadome that
cohesion/dispersion cycles and how they appear as two planes Peruvian electronic music composer and composer, and video artist in Berlin. His borrows from modular sound and visual synthesis techniques,
constantly transposed onto one another. The Moche cosmology producer, artist, and theorist. She is the work is known for precise sound adapting them with contemporary analog and digital tools.
envisioned certain gates that render the intersections of both planes director and editor-in-chief of Cyclops placement, complex, interwoven rhythm
as a space for events. One of these might be considered the Journal, an academic publication structures, and its minimal, flowing The audio uses modular synthesizer patches manipulated live: A
ceremonial or ritual space, a realm in which the distance and division dedicated to contemporary theory, approach. matrix of oscillators interact with each other to produce a variety
between both worlds would blur. theory of religion, and experimental of sounds, from delicate, subtle sequences to rough walls of
theory. Pierce Warnecke is a sound and video noise. The imagery is based on digital emulations of modular video
The work aims to explore the ceremonial object both in its native artist from the US, based in Europe for synthesis. Simple lines and noise-based textures combine to form
context and as an “unearthed object,” expressing its connection with Michael Tan was born in Whyalla, over a decade. He works in both the dynamic patterns and complex synesthetic moirés. Combining
both ancient narratives and the transience and decay that operate in Australia and now lives and works in sonic and visual domains via algorithmic generation and audio-driven interaction, vertical
the natural world. This object, usually presented as a recipient, acts Berlin. His work explores social and performances, installations, and bar-based elements overlap to create dense and abstract fields
as a gate or a threshold, a geometrical key, and signifies generative political issues, and their relationship to compositions. that encourage viewers to explore the real and perceived sense of
space and the readiness preparatory to a transfer between worlds pop culture using digital works, 3D synchronization between sound and image.
(living/dead, vision/blindness, sacred/profane, etc.). rendered and real-time images for video,
animation, and installation.
LARA SARKISSIAN &
JEMMA WOOLMORE
THRESHOLDS
Photo: Bennet Perez
Photo: Mancy Gant
Sound artist Lara Sarkissian and video artist Jemma Woolmore
approach the ISM Hexadome installation as a transsensorial space for Lara Sarkissian is a sound artist, DJ
storytelling on topics of territory, recognition, and memory. (FOOZOOL) and filmmaker based in San
Francisco, CA. She is co-founder of Club
Lara Sarkissian’s work is an ambient electronic landscape referencing Chai with 8ULENTINA; a music label,
Armenian music, field recordings, and churches (both in their sonic radio show on Radar Radio, and
and physical form). The musical score collages elements of voices, curatorial project that artistically
literature, hymns, and instruments, holding a space for modern-day hybridizes non western sounds and
Armenian narratives tied to displacement, both past and present. visuals with contemporary western
culture. Lara Sarkissian’s electronic
Jemma Woolmore’s visuals explore the fragile boundary between music focuses on ambient/experimental
utopia and dystopia. The Hexadome screens become a landscape to productions with Armenian influences
be navigated and divided, creating symbolic borders that are and scores films and installations.
enforced, blurred, or dissolved throughout the work.
Jemma Woolmore is a Berlin based video
As histories and regions are constantly rewritten or destroyed there artist. Blurring the boundaries between
is an urgency to produce counternarratives and highlight cultural real and virtual, Jemma’s work explores
voices often left out. This installation is a celebration of resilience the spatial and emotional possibilities of
and space for these stories. light and image in performative
Environments. Spanning audio-visual
performance, installation and bespoke
visual and sculptural design, her work
shows a strong sensitivity for combining
light, sound and structure.
Holly Herndon became a leading light in
contemporary music by experimenting at
the outer reaches of dance music and pop
songwriting possibilities. Born in Tennessee,
Herndon spent her formative years in
Berlin’s techno scene and repatriated to San
Francisco, where she’s a PhD candidate at
Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in
Music and Acoustics.
Mat Dryhurst is an artist who releases
music and artworks solo and in
conjunction with Holly Herndon and the
record label PAN. As well as collaborating
to create the album ‘Platform’, he released
the decentralized publishing framework
Saga, that enables creators to claim
ownership of each space in which their
work appears online, and a number of
audio plays that derive their narrative from
the personal information of listeners. He
lectures on issues of music, technology
and ideology at NYU, and advises the
blockchain based platform co-operative
Resonate.is.
HOLLY HERNDON &
MATHEW DRYHURST
Spawn Training Ceremony I: Deep Belief”
For the past year, we have been training an artificial neural network
named Spawn. Like a child, Spawn has been initially trained to
recognise and reproduce the sounds of her parents voices, and has
also been introduced to some of the idiosyncratic sounds of
wonderful people that come into our home. Spawn is a fast learner,
and once she has constructed a concept of a sound, she can
improvise and create abstract compositions based on what she
understands that sound to be, and what she anticipates it might do
next.
We feel that now she is ready to be exposed to more influences and
concepts.
For this first training ceremony, our ensemble members will lead
exercises to help Spawn model and understand the world around her.
We will recite text together, sing and emote together, and collectively
produce sounds for her to witness, understand and later interpret for
an installed piece in the Hexadome.
The training will be run by a cast of characters modelled to represent
emerging and competing archetypes within contemporary battles over
data collection and network training, so that Spawn might gather a
greater understanding of the new world in which she has been born.
This process challenges us to ask ourselves, are we the parents or the
children in this new epoch? Are we training our own systems to enact
our ideals, or are we rather being retrained to serve the opaque
purposes of others?
We encourage your full hearted participation in this performance and
piece, and promise that no personal identifying information will be
collected in the process or exhibited in the final work.
PETER VAN HOESEN &
HELEEN BLANKEN
ADAPTIVE ENQUIRY No. 1
This work focuses on the cause and effect of resonance. It deals with
the friction between two elements, searching for the observable
space in between. The visual part of this work will be created in close
collaboration with the Institute for Geosciences at the Utrecht
University.
Peter van Hoesen is a Belgian electronic
music producer, composer, DJ, live
performer, and a key player in the
Brussels electronic music scene. He has
produced various styles of music but is
best known for his bass-heavy, abstract
take on techno with a psychedelic
approach. He has developed a deep
interest in surround-sound composition
and spatial sound design.
Heleen Blanken is a visual artist living
and working in Amsterdam. She works in
cinematography, photography, and
installation art. She holds a bachelor in
fine art degree from the Gerrit Rietveld
Academy in Amsterdam. In her work, she
explores the different layers of our
aesthetic perception of the natural
world and collects images that she
transforms into new constellations,
defying traditional artistic dichotomies
like the organic vs. artificial, or analogue
vs. digital.
RENÉ LÖWE & PFADFINDEREI
THE P!EACE
Want to hit the ceiling, to change the perspective, then float in
René Löwe has long been an important wide spheres and rushing wind, turning on my own axis in free
figure in Berlin’s electronic music scene, fall, pictures like parachutes, the bass a compass, off the beaten
and his compositions helped to define paths through time and space, das Labland, as far as the eye can
the sound the city is so well known for. see, the legs are dangling in space, point A becomes B, cpatch,
Under the name Vainqueur, Löwe’s 3Dub…..just a frame on the big timeline. Click Render and always
compositions such as “Lyot,” released in play.
1992 on the Maurizio label, became a
benchmark for the early 90‘s electronic
sound. Löwe’s influential work is a
unique blend of minimalism with dense,
textured, and spatial sounds.
Pfadfinderei is a Berlin-based
international collective specializing in
interdisciplinary concepts for visual
music performances, multi-media
installations, stage shows, and creative
direction. Going beyond their initial roots
of screen work, they apply immersive
components to fuse light, video, and
spatial design.
TARIK BARRI & THOM YORKE PARTNERS
CITY RATS

Pfadfinderei is a Berlin-based international design studio specializing in

creative motion graphics for concert performance, large-format media
installations, and events. Going beyond screen work, they apply innovative
ideas to fusing light, video, and spatial design.

By extending the original duties of a museum, the ZKM | Center for Art and
Media Karlsruhe has become a cultural institution unique throughout the
world. By combining archive and collections, exhibitions and events,
research and production, the ZKM is able to aptly illustrate art’s
development in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, not least due to
the symposia and other platforms for theoretical discourse between
philosophy, science, art, politics, and the economy that accompany its
collection, exhibition, and research activities.

Norient, network for local and global sounds and media culture since 2002,
is currently re-inventing itself to become a community-based platform that
performs music research. It discusses and explores sounds, thoughts, and
aesthetics of our time worldwide, multi-authored and multi-disciplinary,
through podcasts, texts, photography, and experimental formats.

IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music

directed by Frank Madlener, is one of the world’s largest public research
centers dedicated to both musical expression and scientific research. This
unique location where artistic sensibilities collide with scientific and
technological innovation brings together over 160 collaborators. Founded by
Pierre Boulez, IRCAM is associated with the Centre Pompidou, under the
tutelage of the French Ministry of Culture. The mixed STMS research lab
(Sciences and Technologies for Music and Sound), housed by IRCAM, also
benefits from the support of the CNRS and Sorbonne University.

Tarik Barri presents a composition created in collaboration with

Thom Yorke. Inside the virtual 3D universe of Barri’s self-programmed Tarik Barri is an audiovisual composer in
“Versum” software, all that is heard can be seen, and all that is seen the sense that his compositions always
may be heard. Looped and distorted video fragments of Yorke’s concern the combination of audio and
singing are scattered all around, forming, moving, and changing visuals. During his study in music and
patterns. Twitching and pulsating, they fill the space with unfamiliar technology, he came to realize that the
sounds and sights. same type of programming he used to
write musical applications could be
The audience is taken on a flight exploring this universe in used to create moving images. He has
audiovisual surround, as their path determines the melodies and since focused on developing and using
atmospheres they will encounter. The experience combines elements his real-time audiovisual software
of music and cinema, but at its core is a different entity altogether. “Versum” for the sole purpose of
discovering and expressing new kinds of
aesthetics that can be found in the
interrelations between seeing and
hearing.

Thom Yorke’s work, both as principal

songwriter, singer, and multi-
instrumentalist in Radiohead and as a
solo artist, has placed him at the
forefront of global contemporary music.
Over time he’s shown an enduring
commitment to exploring the aesthetical
and technical forefronts of his field.
HOW TO SUPPORT CREDITS
THE ISM
Institute for Sound & Music
The Institute for Sound & Music would like to thank you for being a part of our Artistic Director: Nick Meehan
first step to redefine the museum experience in the disciplines of Sound,
Immersive Art, and Electronic Music. The ISM Hexadome is the very first step, Concept and Curation: Ben Fawkes, Nick Meehan, Marie-Kristin Meier, Brendan Power,
and with your support, we will continue this journey to one day create a home Annika Weyhrich
for our community of artists, creators, and supporters throughout the world.
Your support will be directly applied to the sharing of knowledge, public access Project Coordination and Editorial: Ben Fawkes, Nick Meehan, Marie-Kristin Meier, Martyn
to the latest technology, to build a home for new works, and explore new Roberts, Joanna Petkiewicz, Brendan Power
directions of our time and for generations to come, based in Berlin.
Public Relations: Mea Liedl, Martyn Roberts
The ISM is a non-profit organization, built by a team of dedicated volunteers
from our community. We welcome and encourage your support. To do so, Project Assistant: Sara Miller
please visit the link below.
Legal and Tax Counseling: Clemens Miegel
The door is open to expand the vision, to build a home, and make history. Get
informed. Get involved. Concept and Technical Implementation of Sound System: Holger Stenschke

Join us. Sound Engineers: Holger Stenschke, Benjamin Miller, Eckehard Güther, Mirna Stanić

With special thanks to Thomas Oberender, Director of the Berliner Festspiele and to all
board members of the Institute for Sound & Music.
http://berlin-ism.com/en/support-the-ism
Curation of Brian Eno’s “Empty Formalism” by the Institute for Sound & Music facilitated
by: Thomas Oberender

Become a friend of the ISM.

Pfadfinderei
Project Director and Design Hexadome: Jan Honza Taffelt

Concept and Technical Implementation: Tobias Götz

Video System: Tobias Götz

Project Assistance: Frederick Roeser, Marco Ciceri, Anne Sebald

ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien

Head of ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics and Klangdom Concept: Ludger Brümmer

Music Technologist, Artist Support: Götz Dipper

Norient – Network for Local and Global Sounds

and Media Culture
Research and Curation: Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter, Hannes Liechti, Sandra Passaro

System 180
Architectural Implementation and Construction: Christoph Blanc, Alexander Prickel

Organizer
Institute for Sound & Music
Urbanstrasse 69, 10967 Berlin
www.berlin-ism.com, contact@berlin-ism.com
Gefort Durch:

Official partners:

Mit freundlicher
Unterstützung von:

In co-operation with:

In Kooperation mit dem ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien und der Pfadfinderei
Gefördert durch die Kulturstiftung des Bundes und die Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa
Zu Gast im Martin-Gropius-Bau, mit herzlichem Dank an Stephanie Rosenthal, Direktorin Martin-Gropius-Bau
In Zusammenarbeit mit Norient – Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture, Institut de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Deutschlandfunk Kultur
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung von Meyer Sound, System 180, Warsteiner (tbc)
Offizieller Partner: Audi City Berlin