Walden: Unanswered Questions
Walden: Unanswered Questions
Contemporary music and literature in the forest.
Free and outdoors, on the grounds of Künstlerhof Frohnau.
Saturday, August 21, 2021, 5:00–9:00 pm
For the launch of the Walden series, international musicians and sound artists explore the forest surrounding Künstlerhof Frohnau as a sound space and stage. The individual contributions follow associative connections and engage with the tensions between nature and culture, city and periphery, history and the present. The title Walden refers to the book of the same name by the American writer Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854, in which he reflects on human existence from the perspective of the outside and of exile in the wilderness of the forest. This is where the Walden program series takes up its starting point: what aesthetic spaces of experience open up from the perspective of the outside, the periphery, the forest, and so-called wilderness?
Curated by Setareh Shahbazi and Kaya Behkalam. With the kind support of the Berlin Reinickendorf District Office, Department of Art and History. As part of Draussenstadt.
Program:
The Pond and The Unanswered Question
by Charles Ives, a remix performed by the SeeingSounds Trio:
Andre Bartetzki, live and interactive electronics
Hendrik Krüger, recorders
Ray Kaczynski, sound sculptures, percussion, and electronics, production
Ray Kaczynski and the SeeingSounds Trio perform contemporary interpretations of the pieces The Unanswered Question and The Pond by composer Charles Ives, who is considered one of the forefathers of musical modernism. With these works, Ives refers to the ideas of the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau, whose book Walden lends its title to this event series.
The Professor in the Forest
Anja Tuckermann and Ray Kaczynski, reading and live music
Reading of fragments from the audio play by Anja Tuckermann, accompanied by Ray Kaczynski on drums. The piece refers to the life of the American terrorist, author, and former mathematics professor Ted Kaczynski, a proponent of nature-centered anarchism, known as the Unabomber.
Scenes from a Dungheap
Literary and musical interventions by Dalia Neis (author and musician, FITH / Dali Muru & the Polyphonic Swarm) in collaboration with Eleni Poulou (artist and musician, Nohe Noshe, The Fall, Bomb Sniffing Dogs) and Andreas Reihse (Kreidler)
Berlin-based author, filmmaker, and sound artist Dalia Neis recently completed her PhD on cinematic representations of wind and the essay form. In addition to her experimental film essays, she is part of the experimental music and poetry group FITH and a co-founder of Wanda-Portal, which publishes albums and radio shows connecting cinematic, literary, and sonic spheres.
Moderated by Antonia Alampi.