Roly Porter 'Aftertime' album cover

Thursday 23 February 2012

Paradiso 21:00 (hall opens 20:30) / €17.50 (discount €15.00)

Bass frequencies abound on the opening evening of Sonic Acts. Beyond Time presents an audiovisual spectacle with dubstep, subsonic minimal techno and avant-garde electronica. Roly Porter and Emptyset use the echo and low frequencies associated with dub music to create a sonic space that dislocates our perception of time. Live projections by Rod MacLachlan and Joanie Lemercier (from AntiVJ) reinforce the alienating potential of the sub-bass. Mark Fell’s radically asymmetric beats ignore time signatures completely in an infectious computer-generated recuperation of acid-house that is timed to the millisecond. The evening opens with the film De Tijd by the filmmaker Bart Vegter (who passed away in 2011). Films by Ian Helliwell and Ryohei Shimada will also be screened.

Deep Time

Friday 24 February 2012

Paradiso 20:00 (hall opens 19:30) / €17.50 (discount €15.00)

On Friday, Sonic Acts pays homage to endless sound with a programme that includes music by the American composer Pauline Oliveros and her ideas about fine-tuning our perceptions by means of Deep Listening to enhance our experience of sound. A pioneer in electronic music, Oliveros’ participation in Sonic Acts in Amsterdam is part of her 80th birthday celebrations. The evocative compositions by Eleh (who has released an LP with Oliveros) have never been performed live in the Netherlands. Roland Kayn’s (1933–2011) cybernetic music and Carl Michael von Hausswolff’s drones almost make sound four-dimensional. The evening closes with a set by the godfather of Detroit techno Juan Atkins that includes a live performance by his legendary Model 500 project.

Natural Time

Saturday 25 February 2012

Paradiso 20:30 (hall opens 20:00) / €17.50 (discount €15.00)

Natural Time is dedicated to biological rhythms, human speed, the cycles of stars and planets, the sounds that nature creates around us, and the natural time that human hands impose on musical instruments. Keith Fullerton Whitman composed Natural Rhythms for Sonic Acts and the Kontraste Festival. It sounds like free jazz in an electronic gaming arcade. The performance Knowing When by Joel Ryan and Spanish pianist Augustí Fernàndez is an exercise in split-second timing. The innovative post-breakbeat duo Icarus closes the evening with a brand new work. All of these musical excursions alternate with experimental films that explore time by Robert Breer, Norman McLaren and René Jodoin.

Special: Long Time

During the festival Ellen Fullman’s Long String Instrument will be installed in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ foyer. On Saturday 25 February, Ellen Fullman will perform a concert on the world’s longest stringed instrument with Okkyung Lee (cello). This performance starts at 19:30.

Post Time

Sunday 26 February 2012

Paradiso 19:00 (hall opens 18:30) / €17.50 (discount €15.00)

Music without time, music that seemingly disregards rhythm and timing, in which time simply passes. The five hour evening Post Time includes compositions by Michael Pisaro, one of the most interesting American composers. Pisaro is a member of the Wandelweiser group whose compositions are usually sparing in the use of notes, extremely low in volume, leaving plenty of room for silence. Pisaro’s pieces fine-tune our perception of everyday sounds and allow the listener to experience real time, in a down to earth way, as the passing of time. They subtly explore harmony and the limits of hearing. His kindred spirit Taku Sugimoto, like Pisaro both a guitarist and composer comes over from Japan. Performers on this evening include Konzert Minimal – an ensemble from Berlin that consists of the cream of contemporary musicians. Tuba virtuoso and composer Robin Hayward performs a solo concert. The Post Time evening ends ‘heavy’ with an electronically amplified performance by The Pitch.

No Time

Friday 24, Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 February 2012

Smart Project Space 17:00 / €10.00 (discount €7.50)

Please note: limited capacity, reservations required for Festival pass holders: reservations@sonicacts.com

Immerse yourself in a subtle drone that opens the portal to a different space with Catherine Christer Hennix + The Choras(s)an Time-Court Mirage. This ensemble will perform no less than three times during Sonic Acts! Hennix’s post-minimal drones elaborate on the work of La Monte Young, with whom she worked during the 1960s and 70s. After a hiatus of 30 years she has returned to performing her endless music that stops time. The Choras(s)an Time-Court Mirage consists of the best musicians in contemporary music when it comes to delving into pure sound, the spatiality of sound and microtonality.

‘As deep and heavy as the 1960’s recordings of La Monte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music, but full of Hennix’ own musical and mathematical genius.’ – Marcus Boon

Emptyset, Cover of Demiyrge. Photo by Caroline Seymore

The festival theme
Time is a complex and ambiguous concept. Relativity theorists and quantum mechanics have tinkered with the seemingly unambiguous concept of time since the beginning of the previous century. Art, film and music make abstract notions of time tangible and comprehensible, and manipulate how we experience it. The ongoing development and implementation of technology constantly challenge, change and undermine our perception of time. Communication networks function at the speed of light, and computers process data in real time, without human intervention. The rapid advances in technology are creating a gap between ‘machine time’ and ‘human time’. Travelling Time is a quest to reveal the significance and the intricacies of time and how we experience it.

Travelling Time examines the need for speed when performing improvised music, and the unavoidable amount of time that is spent programming or constructing an artwork, as well as time travel and how art can be a vehicle for imaginary journeys. The four-day festival brims with performances, lectures, exhibitions and presentations that intensify the experience of time.

Live Performances
A series of performances in SMART Project Space by Catherine Christer Hennix + The Choras(s)an Time-Court Mirage (including Amelia Cuni, Robin Hayward, Franz Hautzinger, Hillary Jeffery and Paul Schwingenschlögl) promises to be a highpoint of the festival. Hennix’s post-minimal drones elaborate on La Monte Young’s concepts, and attempt to halt our experience of time. The Paradiso forms the heart of the performance programme, with its numerous and surprising concerts, performances, film screenings and installations. The concert by the American composer Pauline Oliveros, the originator of Deep Listening and a key figure in music of the past 50 years is not to be missed. She celebrates her 80th birthday in 2012 and comes to Amsterdam especially for Sonic Acts.

Synthesizer specialist Eleh, who has released a split LP with Oliveros, will shroud the Paradiso in analogue drones on the same evening. The music programme also includes cybernetic music by the composer Roland Kayn, who passed away last year; post-dubstep performances by infra-sub specialists Roly Porter and Emptyset; radical asynchronous rhythms from Mark Fell; and process-based music by Keith Fullerton Whitman. Extensive attention is also paid to music by Wandelweiser composers, including Michael Pisaro and Taku Sugimoto, who integrate silence in their works to intensify our experience of time.

Conference
Musicians, academics, sound artists and new media adepts will gather for the Sonic Acts conference that will be held in De Balie from 23 to 26 February: four days of inspiration, immersion and discussions, with numerous lectures, presentations and interviews that reveal how artists operate at the boundaries of art, technology and science. In addition to the musicians and artists such as Catherine Christer Hennix, Michael Pisaro, Mark Fell and Pauline Oliveros mentioned above, the conference is also an opportunity for academics and philosophers to share their thoughts and ideas. George Dyson – whose new book, Turing’s Cathedral, will be published in early 2012 – talks about computer time; Siegfried Zielinski discusses his theories relating to Deep Time and Variantology; Hillel Schwartz talks about noise and time – his 1000-page Making Noise. From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond has just been published; John Geiger discusses extreme mental and physical experiences; and David Edgerton dives into the history of technology and expounds on ‘the Shock of the Old’.

Exhibition
The exhibition continues until 15 April 2012 at NIMk – more information about the exhibition programme will follow soon.

Book
A lavishly illustrated publication discusses various aspects of the festival theme from different perspectives. The book contains a.o.  interviews with Catherine Christer Hennix, Mark Fell, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Hilary Jeffery, and essays by Siegfried Zielinski, Omar Muñoz-Cremers (about SF and time travel), Thomas Patteson (about Roland Kayn), and others.

The ticketsale for Sonic Acts XIV ‘Travelling Time’ started today!

Book now and profit from our Early Bird discount prices (until 1 January).

Just click here to enter the ticketshop of De Balie.

(For non-Dutch visitors: please click ‘bestellen’ and change your language to English on the next page in the above right corner.)

The history of Sonic Acts dates to 1994 and over the past years we have been working to organize all of the documentation. The result is a collection of hundreds of videos and thousands of photo’s.

We are proud to announce the release of the video records of lectures, panels and keynotes of Sonic Acts XIII ‘The Poetics of Space’ (2010).

Please find the released videoclips filed under ‘archive‘.