Residents ///

Kazimieras Jušinskas

Saxophonist Kazimieras Jušinskas took on new music and improvisation at the LMTA after finishing his studies as an instrumentalist. A former member of Brave Noises, a jazz sextet, he has recently performed with several other bands, such as Katarsis4, Džiazlaif, Laivo Troupe, and Castor Stetson. He has worked with DJ Extended and participated in jazz festivals throughout Lithuania. He has toured Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Scotland.

Kristupas Gikas

Flutist Kristupas Gikas is an improviser and performer of experimental music. After graduating from the Čiurlionis National Arts School in 2012, he entered the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre where his professor was Valentinas Gelgotas, a renowned Lithuanian flutist. After discovering improvisational music, he studied new music and improvisation at the LMTA before taking on sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague, the Netherlands.

Recently he has been writing music as DJ Extended and has been a member of Laivo Troupe, a band dedicated to improvisational music. He is also an eager participant of different artistic endeavours, from electronic music to interdisciplinary projects in Lithuania and beyond.

Simonas Kaupinis

In addition to his training as a tubist, Simonas Kaupinis also studied new music at the LMTA and has since been an active member of several ensembles, such as Ąžuoliniai Berželiai and Laivo Troupe, both dedicated to improvisational music; alternative jazz-rock band Kanalizacija, and Rakija Klezmer Orkestar, an ensemble exploring the Klezmer tradition in Jewish music. He has taken part in many festivals and projects of new and improvisational music.

Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė, Arminas Bižys and Matas Samulionis

Three young performers – flutist Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė and saxophonists Arminas Bižys and Matas Samulionis – started playing together inspired by a vision of becoming a top-class trio dedicated to new academic music. After several years of studying together at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, the three became good friends.

The idea of the trio came to being while they were studying performance of new and improvisational music. Beginning with their years at the LMTA, the members of the ensemble have gained experience in playing very different types of music, from free improvisation and precise or freely interpretable graphic notation, to analysis and implementation of abstract visual inspirations. Over the past several years, through playing together in different projects and performances, the musicians have reached the level of concord which prompted the birth of the trio.

Each member of the ensemble treasures her or his individual ties with the world of music by taking part in other musical endeavours spanning a broad spectrum of styles. Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė is a member of One Two Free, and Kosmonautic; Arminas Bižys plays in Džiazlaif, Katarsis4, and Synaesthesis, while Matas Samulionis works with Newborn, and Artfcl.

While playing together, the three performers invest their experience in the future they see in the trio becoming a long-term and ever improving project capable of dealing with any challenge.

Kristupas Bubnelis

Currently based in London, Kristupas Bubnelis represents the youngest generation of Lithuanian composers. He has written music for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles and solo instruments. His composition “Hammers without a piano” earned him the first prize at the competition of new piano pieces hosted by the Lithuanian Composers’ Union (2016). His music has been performed in Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, the Netherlands, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. His academic achievements in London have been marked by the G. V. Turner-Cooke Composition Award in 2019 and the Arthur Hinton Memorial Prize in 2017. He has been a keen participant of composition seminars and master classes led by Oliver Knussen, Magnus Lindberg, Bent Sørensen, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Hans Abrahamsen. In 2017, he was invited to the Crossroads Festival of new music in Salzburg, Austria. In addition to composition, he works as an event manager. Together with other artists he organises stage performances and contributes to the popularisation of contemporary Lithuanian music abroad. In 2019 he was the key producer of The Chain of Freedom: Baltic Sounds in Focus, a string orchestra concert in London aimed at introducing the most noteworthy current composers from the three Baltic nations to the British audience.

Piotr Bednarczyk

In 2019, he graduated from the Academy of Music in Wrocław under Cezary Duchnowski. His activities as a composer are focused mainly on instrumental chamber music, electroacoustic music and electronic music. In his works he concentrates on searching for interesting sound structures using unconventional sound extraction techniques and live electronics. Bednarczyk’s stylistic interests revolve around noise, glitch and club music. He often incorporates performance and visuals into his acts, including stroboscopic effect and lighting control. Bednarczyk is also an active performer of his compositions. He performs his own electronic music as the one-man project LOUFR. The musician is also a member of the Sound Factory Orchestra, in which he is responsible for the production of audio and electronic music. Bednarczyk is also a member of the Wrocław-based Wkurvv collective, whose main activity is the popularisation of experimental electronic music. His works have been presented at such festivals as Warsaw Autumn, Musica Electronica Nova, Musica Polonica Nova, CROSSROADS, Słuchalnia, Muslab, New Music Week, GAIDA Festival, Idealistic Festival and SNIM. He has collaborated with NAMES Ensemble, Ensemble Adapter, Garage Ensemble, Sound Factory Orchestra, Ensemble Kompopolex, Ensemble Synaesthesis, SNIM Ensemble, Trio Layers, Ars Nova Ensemble, and Ensemble s201.

Twenty Fingers Duo

Twenty Fingers Duo is a string ensemble created by brother and sister who see new experimental music as their primary target, but are also keen to take part in the projects involving other genres. Although it was quite recently that cellist Arnas Kmieliauskas started performing with his sister, violinist Lora Kmieliauskaitė, they are a “ticking” duo with a distinct creative prospect.
The ensemble has been behind the recent launch ofPerforma, the multimedia programme aimed at commissioning new works of music from composers who (de)construct new forms of performance. The initiativepoints to the duo’s resolute desire to look for new and even somewhat radical creative challenges.
Both Arnas and Lora are versatile and experienced performers and keen participants of international competitions, masterclasses and festivals held in Lithuania and abroad. They have played in a number of ensembles created for different artistic projects.
The duo has won multiple prizes both at home and internationally for their artistic initiatives and interpretation of music. (By Asta Pakarklytė)

Thommy Wahlström 

Composer and musician Thommy Wahlström was born in 1968 in Uppsala, Sweden. He studied composition at the Gotland School of Music Composition and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm under a number of renowned musicians, such as William Brunson, Karin Rehnqvist, Henrik Strindberg, Lars Ekström, Johan Hammerth, and Per Mårtensson. His music has been performed in Sweden, Germany, Ireland and the United States. As a soprano saxophonist, he has played plenty of Swedish folk music, free improvisation and folk-jazz. He is a member of several bands, includingTvåCirklar (improvised music), Barkbröder (improvised and folk music), and Trio Quatuor (early music). He plays jazz as a member of the Wahlström/Allard Duo. He has performed in Europe, India and the United States.

Agnė Matulevičiūtė

Agnė Matulevičiūtė is an artist who has chosen music and sound as her preferred medium. She is a student of composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. She has been an active participant of group exhibitions, music and art festivals, and residencies for artists in Lithuania and beyond since 2014. She has written music for internationally screened films and for more than ten stage productions by major Lithuanian theatre companies. She is the artistic director of the “Muzika erdvėje“ festival and an active collaborator in projects involving different disciplines of artistic expression. She became a member of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union in 2019. Her primary field of interest is the area beyond sound, including its contexts, discourses and application in musical and sound compositions.

Arma Agharta

Armantas Gečiauskas (b. 1982), better known by his alias of Arma Agharta, is the Lithuanian sound artist and promoter devoted to improvised and experimental music. He has been involved in the worldwide underground music for twenty years already as a publisher of zines, head of independent record label, band member and show producer. Recently he has performed solo and together with other musicians and has been in charge of several festivals in Lithuania.

A fan of smaller towns, he has been living and working in Jonava, Panevėžys and Kėdainiai for many years already.

He has given more than 500 performances all over the world since 2007.

His high-energy shows span a broad territory in terms of artistic expression, covering anything between the eruptions of chaotic noise and hypnotic psychedelic ritual to Dadaist humour, odd bodily movements, spontaneous improvised games, cheap tricks of magic, and glossolalia.

2019 ///

Ralph Mothwurf

Composer and musician Ralph Mothwurf lives and works in Vienna. He has been studying jazz composition and contemporary composition at the Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz since the autumn of 2015. He has already studied at the Vienna Music Institute from which he graduated with distinction in 2014. 

Together with Yasmin Hafedh and Tobias Vedovelli he founded Yasmo & Die Klangkantine, the music project which has performed at the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Radiokulturhaus Wien, the Porgy & Bess and WUK. They also took part at a number of festivals, including Jazzfest Saalfelden, Donauinselfest, Wiener Festwochen and ImPulsTanz. In 2018, the ensemble was nominated for the Amadeus Austrian Music Award and continues to perform in German-speaking countries. 

Last year, Ralph’s orchestral composition Keinem Bleibt Seine Gestalt (None keeps their form) was selected to be performed by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz as part of its Anhörung (Hearing) concert programme directed by Markus Poschner and presented at the Festival for New Music at the Bruckner University. The year 2018 also saw the premiere of his another piece for orchestra, Jean-Michel Basquiat, conducted by himself. 

Volkmar Klien

Growing up in Vienna, Volkmar Klien (b. 1971) spent his childhood engulfed in the city’s rich musical life with all of its glorious traditions and engrained rituals. Working from this background, today he strives to extend traditional practices of composing, producing and listening far beyond the established settings of concert music. He works in various areas of the audible and occasionally inaudible arts by navigating the manifold links between the different modes of human perception, the spheres of presentation and the roles they play in the communal generation of meaning. His works have been widely recognized, exhibited, performed and presented. He has received commissions from many renowned institutions. He composed music to a full evening ballet for the Volksoper Wien. The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, USA, invited him to produce multi-channel electronic sound works. For Transitio_MX in Mexico City he produced a mixed media installation based on acoustic survey of landscapes. In his installation Aural Codeshe he turned the radio sphere over London into his exhibition space inviting residents to tune in and interact.

Pavel Matveyev

Pavel Matveyev (b. 1980) is a Russian visual artist mainly interested in photography and sound. His work often starts with observations of ordinary places, past events and experiences. These might be a deserted building, annotations in a second-hand book or a collection of old music instruments. His projects range from exhibitions and books to audio walks and public commissions. Player Piano is an on-going collaboration with sound artist Ricardo Atienza aimed at democratisation of music-making. The project provides the technology and space for participants to produce, share and enjoy music together. In The First Water Matveyev constructs a story of Molinar, a valley of abandoned factories in Spain, through a reading of found notes suggesting a relationship between two men, a factory worker and a musician. The work which combines photography, sound recording, video and objects was presented as an installation in 2019 at Fundación Mutua Levante in Alcoy, Spain. 

Matveyev studied photography at Brighton University and received master’s degree in fine arts in 2012 from Konstfack in Stockholm. He has exhibited in Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. He lives and works in Karlholmsbruk, Sweden.

Maarten Brijker

Maarten Brijker’s artworks deal with social infrastructure, constructed identity and anxiety, the themes he explores using various mediums such as dance and DJ performances, installations, video projects, social media accounts and music releases. 

Recently he used constructed identity as a framework for creating art in his MA graduation project, In My Dreams I Stand Upon a Void (2018), an immersive sound installation resembling a conversation between three fictional characters in a dream. He studied art science at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague after taking an interdisciplinary programme covering economics, programming, theoretical philosophy and mathematics at the University of Amsterdam.

As DJ Yon Eta he performs in clubs and runs a recurring show at Red Light Radio, exploring storytelling through music. He is also in charge of the DEVORM Imprint, a hybrid community challenging the form of audio and video releases. In his Bar None club events he explores the past, present and future of club culture. 

In recent years he has released audio-visual works in collaboration with FOAM, EYE Film Institute and Freeform Festival and performed at the Sonic Acts Festival in Amsterdam and the Long Progress Bar Festival in the United Kingdom. He won major trophies at the Grand Prize of the Netherlands in 2010 and the Berlin Music Video Awards in 2013.

Dodomundo 

Dodomundo is a sound artist interested in the themes related to nature, body (or bodies), sex and self-love. By exploring non-conformist ways on traditional dancefloor, she has expanded her practice beyond clubs and into other spaces. Her creative approach is highly intuitive and empathetic as she tries to create a communal experience throughout each performance. Dodomundo’s sets include pieces of ratchet rap, ambient music, field recordings and club elements making the outsider music genres the driving force of her musical inspiration. Dodomundo has worked with the Young Girl Reading Group and the Unthinkable Collective. Her sets were streamed on NTS and the Red Light Radio. She has performed at Progress Bar in Amsterdam, Théâtre de l’usine in Geneva and the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. As a DJ, she played in clubs in Paris, Berlin, Minsk and Reykjavik.

Stan de Natris

Stan de Natris, a Dutch freelance graphic designer, started his professional practice in mid-2014 after graduating from the ArtEZ University of Arts in Arnhem. He also studied media design at the Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Eindhoven. He spent the past five years in Berlin where he was involved in the various projects by Slavs and Tatars, an artistic group focussed on book publishing, exhibitions and lectures. Next to that he has been running a publishing initiative Architecture for the Poor which releases printed materials commenting on topics such as gentrification and class struggle.

Philomene Pireck

Philomene Pirecki’s work deals with how time, memory and perception can materialise in images, objects and sonic performance. Her sound work is built around recordings generated by her own body and electromagnetic energy. Using somatic rhythms such as vocal drones, variations in her heartbeats, layered breathing, physical and emotional states; she shapes this into resonant sonic material and visceral basslines. In a diverse practice including photographs that will unfold over the duration of her lifetime, or work that references the changing frequency standards and technologies used for measuring time itself, Pirecki’s work addresses the temporalities and impermanence of lived experience and our attempts to hold and structure it.

She has recently exhibited or performed at Café Oto, London; Wysing Polyphonic music festival; South London Gallery; Supplement, NYC; Chelsea Space, London; Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland; Pace gallery, London; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris; State of Concept, Athens. In 2013 Pirecki was shortlisted for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. She co-runs Casa Delirium clubnight / sound programme. Pirecki is currently a studio resident at Somerset House Studios, London.

Ieva Sriebaliūtė

Ieva Sriebaliūtė is a researcher and a multi-disciplinary artist. She is a recent MSc graduate in European affairs from Lund University, Sweden, holding a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Vilnius University. Her academic and artistic interest is focused on the political and cultural aspects of memory and identity. Recently, as a member of artist collective “Money Haven”, Ieva participated in a group exhibition “Dignity” at the Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius. Her collective was shortlisted for JCDecaux prize 2018 and received a special mention. Together with “Money Haven” Ieva is currently preparing new artwork for a group exhibition at “I: project space” in Beijing, China in July 2019. She is also a current participant of an alternative education program at Rupert – a centre for art and education in Vilnius. 

In music, by rechanneling cultural codes, Ieva attempts to deconstruct a linear perception of time and create new contexts for collectively recognizable experiences and emotions. She is a host of an online radio show “Unfoldings”, airing on “Palanga Street Radio”.

Paulius Petraitis 

Paulius Petraitis is a Vilnius-based theoretician, curator and artist. His artworks explore the production of meanings of images within a broader socio-cultural and technological context. Currently he is working on A Man with Dark Hair and a Sunset in the Background, a project in which he uses his personal photographs scanned with the help of visual recognition software. He is a member of Pinigų Uostas (The Money Port), an interdisciplinary project which made its debut in 2018 Vilnius and travelled to Beijing in 2019. He is a curator of the 2020 Riga Biennale of Photography.

He is a presenter of Pietų Pertrauka (Lunch Break), a radio show of informal discussions and music broadcasted by the Palanga Street Radio. He is interested in Lithuanian pop music of 1991–2003.

Piotr Bednarczyk

Born in 1994 in Koszalin, a city in northwestern Poland, Piotr Bednarczyk is a composer whose main focus is chamber and electroacoustic music based on the search for new sounds with the help of live electronics and unconventional sound-making techniques. His stylistic interests revolve around noise, glitch and club music. As a performer of his own electronic music, he sometimes employs action-based elements and lighting structures. His music was presented at a number of festivals dedicated to new music, including Warsaw Autumn, Musica Electronica Nova in Wroclaw, Musica Polonica Nova in Wroclaw, Crossroads in Salzburg, Muslab in Mexico City, and New Music Week.

Andreas Trobollowitsch

Andreas Trobollowitsch is a Vienna-based composer, performer and sound- and installation artist. He works extensively in the fields of electroacoustic composition and improvisation, and has written music for dance, theatre, film and radio. 

Based on rotation, vibration and feedback systems he uses mainly modified everyday objects, prepared fans and string instruments. Recently he has been focusing primarily on conceptual compositions, self-made musical instruments, and sound and drawing installations. He is interested in the dichotomy of the intellectual and the physical and in the relationship between sound and visual aspects, spatiality and movement.

He received the State Scholarship for Composition and was a SHAPE artist in 2017. His music was released by schraumin Berlin, Monotype Recordsin Warsaw, Crónica Recordsin Porto andFilmarchiv Austriain Vienna).  

His festival appearances include Todays Art in the Hague, Musikprotokoll in Graz, Festival Maintenant in Rennes, Festival Novas Frequências in Rio de Janeiro, Tsonami Festival in Valparaiso, Festival Dotolimpic in Seoul, City Sonic in Brussels, Sonica in Ljubljana, Cynetart in Dresden. 

He has performed at a number of venues worldwide, including Mumok in Vienna, Super Delux Club in Tokyo, Ex Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City, Condit in Buenos Aires, Museu de Arte do Rio in Rio de Janeiro, The Renaissance Society in Chicago, Harvestworks in New York, Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig, Kule, Ohrenhoch, ZK/U in Berlin, Made In Town in Paris, iii in the Hague, Kunstraum Engländerbau in Vaduz, and Künstlerhaus in Vienna.

Ramūnas Motiekaitis

Ramūnas Motiekaitis (g. 1976) Vilniaus konservatorijoje mokėsi choro dirigavimo, 1995-2001 m. Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademijoje studijavo kompoziciją pas prof. Osvaldą Balakauską. Motiekaičio kūriniai skambėjo tarptautiniuose šiuolaikinės muzikos festivaliuose Lietuvoje ir užsienyje: "Gaida" (1996, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2007), "Jauna muzika" (1997, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006), Jaunimo kamerinės muzikos dienose Druskininkuose (1997, 1998, 2003), "Ultima" (2003, Oslas). Kartu su dailininkais kompozitorius dalyvavo projektuose: "Tiesė-pjūvis" (1996, Alytus), "Observatorija" (1997, Vilnius), Baltijos šalių bienalėje "ArtGenda'98" (Stokholmas). 1998 m. dalyvavo Darmštato vasaros naujosios muzikos kursuose, kuriuose lankė Helmuto Lachenmanno ir György Kurtago kompozicijos seminarus. 2001-2005 m. Motiekaitis studijavo kompoziciją Norvegijoje, Norges Musikkhøgskole. 2006 m. jis laimėjo prizą už geriausią multimedijinį kūrinį ("Mano iliuzijos garsas" kameriniam ansambliui ir vaizdo projekcijai, sukurtas kartu su vaizdo menininku Pauliumi Sluškoniu) Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjungos rengiamame geriausių metų kūrinių konkurse; 2010 m. tame pačiame konkurse jam atiteko geriausio vokalinio kūrinio prizas (už "Symphonie de Septembre"), o 2011 m. – I premija (už kūrinį „Vabzdžių žingsniai“ simfoniniam orkestrui). Kompozitorius domisi meno teorija, 2011 m. baigė doktorantūrą Tokijo ir Helsinkio universitetuose, parengęs disertaciją apie Japonijos ir Vakarų sąveikas filosofijoje ir mene (2008 m. šiai disertacijai pabaigti stipendiją skyrė Japonijos vyriausybė). 2011 m. geriausių muzikologijos darbų konkurse disertacijos pagrindu anglų kalba parengta mokslinė studija „Bevardžio vidurio poetika: Japonija ir Vakarai XX amžiaus filosofijoje ir muzikoje“ ("Poetics of the Nameless Middle: Japan and the West in Philosophy and Music of the Twentieth Century") pelnė Vytauto Landsbergio vardo premiją.

Eglė Grigaliūnaitė, www.mic.lt

Synaesthesishas

Directed by conductor Karolis Variakojis and pianist Marta Finkelštein Contemporary Music Ensemble Synaesthesishas a growing reputation within the contemporary music world. The team of young and ambitious musicians has taken up the mission of introducing works of experimental Lithuanian and foreign composers to the performance venues. The ensemble’s vision goes beyond sound – but into space, light, movement and narrative – anything that allows for professionally performed music to become a multidimensional creation, blurring lines between genres.

The musicians within the group have finished their studies in leading music colleges throughout Europe; some are still in their studies. The ensemble collaborates with artists from different genres and constantly tries to cross the lines between arts.  In the end of 2017 ensemble received the Young Artist Awardfrom Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and in 2018 the was an ensemble in residence of Lithuanian Composers Union. Ensemble members were mentored by members of Ictus, Klangforum Wien, Quatour Tana, Chordos, and FortVioensembles.

The ensemble is an active performer on Lithuania’s contemporary music scene and festivals, such as Druskomanija, Aheadand Gaida, DAR(Druskininkai Artists Residence) and Artist Residencyin Kintai. Making its first, but very secure steps into the international scene Synaethesisparticipated in the International Summer Academy in Austria (ISA 2016 and 2017), where both years musicians were awarded the Just Composedinterpretation prize for the best performance of the premiered pieces. Synaesthesisis successfully entering international music stage – in 2017 was performing at contemporary music festivals - Melos Ethosin Slovakia and Crossroadsin Salzburg, in 2019 traveled to Estonia and Netherlands.

Raul Keller 

Raul Keller (b. 1973, Estonia) is one of the most notable sound and video artists in Estonia, Raul Keller has been engaged in a multitude of contemporary art practices since the late 1990s focused on site-specific sound installation, performance, improvisation, do-it-yourself culture, and radiophonic art. Together with Katrin Essenson and Hello Upan he launched LokaalRaadio in 2011 to present sonic experiments and radio art to audiences far beyond Estonia. He is a member of Eesti Elekter, an experimental electronics band, and a co-founder of Post Horn, a duo (with Hello Upan) dedicated to free improvisation with noise. His band The Great Outdoors played burlesque, Americana and rock. He is a founding member of MKDK, which stands for A Dynamic Collective of Music and Arts, and a frequent collaborator with the MIMproject, a freeform artistic alliance in search of touchpoints between arts, technology and new media. In 2011 he launched, together with performing artist Katrin Essenson, the Radiaator Festival aimed at exploring international radio art. He has received commissions from and performed in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, Brazil, India, Poland, and the Baltic States. He has been professor and head of the New Media Department at the Estonian Academy of Arts since 2014.

Erik Alalooga

Erik Alalooga (b. 1974, Estonia) is a freelance performance director, sound artist, teacher, performer and cultural manager based in Tallinn, he is best known for the exploration and application of the custom-built analog technology in his artworks. Since 2005 his focus has been mainly on the immediate relationship between humans and machines. Between 2009 and 2011 he carried out a number of performances and exhibitions related to the phenomena of collective interaction. More recently he has been associated mainly with postdramatic theatre as he tried to explore the interaction of a physical body with the matter and technology. His stage show Resistance of Material won the Estonian Independent Dance Prize in 2012. His art projects travelled more than a dozen European countries as well as the United States and Australia. He already has academic degrees in sculpture and interdisciplinary arts and has been a PhD student of theatre art in Tallinn. In music, he speaks against over-digitalisation of sound and for the underground music education. His experimental approach to sound gave birth to Postinstrumentum, a band known for its sound art shows. Since 2014 he has been appearing as a solo performer of alternative music too. His musical expression is based on analytical interaction with the matter and purpose-made objects. The basic unit of his compositions is a repeated pattern that may be created by running motor-powered mechanical objects alongside which he manipulates impulses, rhythms and speeds.

2018 ///

Gediminas Žygus

J. G. Biberkopf (b.1991, Lithuania) works in the space between the fields of music, documentary, conceptual art and performance. Biberkopf's practice, with the aim of becoming ever more media-agnostic, involves assembling collages that encompass influences from ecosophy, sound studies, and post-colonial, architecture and media theory.

His work, being anti-architectural and concerned with the interplay of design and power, encourages audiences to “unthink” and to create alternative genealogies of principal metaphysical and physical architectures, in order to reflect on their interplay, narrativisation, and their influence on and within sociality.

Biberkopf is interested in creating autonomous ecologies that become independent of himself. He has previously worked intensively with aural signifiers, signs and memes, exploring the semiotics of sound. Biberkopf has developed a practice which has been variously called sculptural, theatrical and cinematic.

Biberkopf has presented works and collaborations at Barbican Centre (UK), Berghain (DE), CAC (LT), Haus Der Kunst (DE), HEAD Geneva (CH), Pompidou (FR), Rupert (LT), Sonic Acts (NL), Studium Generale Rietveld (NL), The Kitchen (US), Unsound (PL), Venice Biennale (IT), etc. He was a member of the curatorial teams of the Newman Festival (2015), and of the Unthinkable Nomos research project and events series (2016).

Holly Childs

Holly Childs is a writer and artist studying emerging communicative phenomena. She is the author of two novels,Danklands(Arcadia Missa) and No Limit(Hologram). She was a postgraduate researcher in The New Normal (Speculative Media, Design and Architecture) program at the Strelka Institute, Moscow, in 2017. Recent presentations of her work include: Patternist, a collaboratively developed urban exploration AR demo in 2017; Have The Dusk Deepen for Rogue Agents curated by Auto Italia, at Firstdraft, Sydney in 2017; art writer in Adam Linder’s choreographic service Some Proximity at Biennale of Sydney in 2016; and Danklands [Swamped] for Liquid Architecture, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in 2015.

hollychilds.com

Andrius Arutiunian

Andrius Arutiunian is an Armenian-Lithuanian composer and sound artist based in the Netherlands. His music explores the socio-cultural aspects of specific histories through their sonic artefacts, often dealing with identity, sonic appropriation and thresholds of noise and sound. Ideas of sonic re-creation and re-composition form an important part of Arutiunian’s practice. His work consists of electroacoustic pieces for various ensembles, sound installations and multimedia pieces, as well as solo electronic and audio-visual sets. Arutiunian’s pieces have been commissioned or performed by Slagwerk Den Haag, Nadar, MAZE, Ensemble Modelo62, Synaesthesis and other contemporary music groups. His work has been recently shown at documenta 14 (DE), Contemporary Art Centre (LT), Melos-Ethos (SL) and MAZE Festival (NL) among others.Andrius Arutiunian’s works are published by Donemus (NL).

andriusarutiunian.com

Juan-Pablo Villegas

Juan-Pablo Villegas (b. 1986, Mexico) sees filmmaking as a way to bring together his interests in image and in sound. His practice takes as a starting point the body’s perception of external stimuli and considers how that influences our personal and collective experience. The tools he uses derive from audiovisual principles, and the unconventional way he uses them encourages reflection. In recent years, he has researched issues related to translation and the expansion of the sensory spectrum, the animist condition of objects, and the formation of the psychosomatic.

Ieva Kotryna Skirmantaitė

Ieva Kotryna Skirmantaitė (b. 1994) is a video artist interested in alternative documentary forms in theory and in practice. By capturing and connecting real events, other people’s practices, discussions, sounds and bits from everyday life, she has found a way to create an imaginary path and to reveal invisible excitements and anxieties. She explores how different technical qualities of the digital image act as separate memory systems and represent different contemporary political and economical values.

Monika Lipšic

Monika Lipšic is a curator, researcher and artist currently based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Her primary interest is the role of art in the way history is constantly being written and rewritten. She often uses metaphorical thinking and representations of absurdity, among other tools, in her curation. From 2012 to 2016, on and off, Monika worked as a curator at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius. For the past few years she curated and produced performance art in European organizations (Nomas Foundation, Rome; Kunstverein, Amsterdam; STUK, Leuven and others). Together with architecture researcher and curator Jurga Daubaraitė she is a founder of the traveling artists’ residency JOY & MIRROR. In 2017 she curated a solo show by Slavs and Tatars (CAC, Vilnius) and a group show ‘The Future Is Certain; It’s the Past Which Is Unpredictable’ (2018) ат Blaffer Art Museum Houston. Recently she was nominated for the CEC Artslink award and completed a residency at CCA Wattis, San Francisco.

monikalipsic.com

Marianna Maruyama

Marianna Maruyama uses the body and voice as primary agents in her performance-based practice. One of her primary interests is translation as an artistic method. Following an extensive working period in Japan, Maruyama moved to the Netherlands in 2012, and has been based in The Hague since 2016. She guest tutors at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI Art Praxis MA) and is an artist-researcher at the invitation of the Sedje Hémon Foundation. She performs in both contemporary art and music contexts; recent exhibitions and performances include documenta 14 Parliament of Bodies (DE), SMBA (NL), Manifesta 11 (CH), and others.

mariannamaruyama.com

Jokūbas Čižikas

Jokūbas Čižikas’ practice consists of installations, video and sound art, performance and sculpture. In his work he explores trans-sensory phenomena, the relationship between nature and technology, and linguistic structures. He places an emphasis on socio-political and economical processes that intermingle with non-human and alien phenomena.

His most recent works and exhibitions have been presented project space Editorial, Vilnius; MAXXXI National Museum, Rome; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Antanas Mončys Museum, Palanga; National Martynas Mažvydas Library, Vilnius; Documenta 14, Kassel; project space A-DASH, Athens.

He also works as a producer of experimental electronic and electro-acoustic music, with an interest in the dynamic synthesis of contemporary and ritualistic sonic expression. As a performer and DJ he has played in numerous institutions and clubs in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Austria and Lithuania. As a sound designer he has worked extensively in film, video art and spatial installations, often combining sound with tangible materials.

Rūta Vitkauskaitė

Ruta Vitkauskaite’s (b.1984, Lithuania) musical interests are wide and varied. While working in the field of classical composition (PhD at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Master’s at the Lithuanian Academy of Music), Ruta became an active initiator of experimental music projects (music visualisation, acoustic surround, music personalisation), organiser (from 2006 to 2013 she was the director of the Druskomanija festival and workshop series The Process in Lithuania, and from 2012 to 2017 she was the facilitator of New Music Incubator with Martin Q. Larsson in Nordic and Baltic countries and, now, across the EU), and performer (violin, piano, voice, electronics).

While living in the UK, Ruta developed a deep interest in music education (Learning Trainee at BCMG, Fellow at Open Academy at RAM, and since 2013 working creatively with people living with dementia). Currently, Ruta is deepening her research in music personalisation (through her work with Spatial Opera Company in Sweden/Lithuania, and through her solo performance Something Personal), and delivering music as an experience through work with communities (compositional workshops, including UNCHOIR for Aronia Overtoure workshop in collaboration with Bartaku and Karl Heinz Jeron).

Viktorija Damerell

Viktorija Damerell is a young artist and art curator currently living in Vilnius, Lithuania. As an artist she works in fields of sculpture, sound and text. Through her work she questions whether the autonomy of desire is possible when our experiences are formed, simulated and made banal by the dominant structures. In the last few years Viktorija has presented her sculpture, sound and video installations in various contemporary art projects and, also, together with Ona Juciūtė, she curated several exhibitions that presented the youngest generation of Lithuania’s contemporary artists.

Currently she is working on the audiovisual book project based on her literature piece in process ”The Synchroniser”.

viktorijadamerell.com

Villem Jahu

Villem Jahu is an interdiciplinary artist who works on visual and sound art landscapes. His sound creations mainly focus on free improvisation on electronic machines.
His current preoccupation is incorporating the complex sonic image of natural sounds into the world of experimental electronic instruments and interactive installations. Jahu has been fonding member of the artist group Arrowgroup since 2014. He is also member of performance group Adhesion and noise ensemble Viru Realist.

villemjahu.com

Argo Vals

Argo Vals is a composer and live-electronics artist. He has been making music for almost all his life, but gained an interest in experimenting and recording music mainly DIY in 2006.
He started composing and performing with live-electronics in 2008. Nowadays his live-electroncis setup consists of electric guitar, drum machines, looper and effect pedals. His music resembles variously IDM, ambient music, math rock and nordic jazz.
Recently, Vals has also composed music for several dance and theatrical performances.

Vals has released two full-length solo albums. His debut album Tsihcierwas released in 2012 and second album Nokturnin 2015. Both records were nominated in the Estonian Music Awards as the best alternative/indie album of the year. The Estonian Music Awards also nominated Vals as male artist of the year in 2016. He has toured three times with his live-electronics performance in Europe and Russia since 2014. He is currently working on his third album, which will be released within a year. For now there are two singles, To a Tireless Daydreamer, released in June 2017.

He is a member of Viljandi Guitar Trio (since 2008), Karl Petti Band / previously Talamak (since 2011) and Argo Vals Band (since 2011).

Such words as “freedom,” “playful,” “dreamy,” “clarity”—but also “anxiety”—hint at the kind of music he creates.

argovals.bandcamp.com

Andrius Šiurys

Andrius Šiurys is a composer of instrumental, electronic and electro-acoustic music. He began his musical life as a trumpeter. After graduating music school he started experimenting with electronic music. This led to a specialisation in music technology at the Kaunas University of Technology, followed by composition studies at the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy under professor Rytis Mažulis, with additional teaching from the Latvian composer Mārtiņš Viļums, who was lecturing at the Academy at that time. Šiurys started to write instrumental music during his studies. Later, he began to experiment with electro-acoustic music. His work is often inspired by literature, cinema and other art forms.

Šiurys has created music for audiovisual projects, drama, audio, dance performances, and he regularly participates in Lithuanian contemporary music festivals, interdisciplinary art collaborative projects. In 2017, he founded the electro-acoustic group Delasfera. Since 2017 he has been a member of Electronic Music Trio.

Vladimir Tarasov

Vladimir Tarasov (b.1947, Russia) has lived and worked in Vilnius, Lithuania, since 1968. For many years Tarasov performed with the Lithuanian Symphonic Orchestra and other symphonic, chamber, and jazz orchestras in Lithuania, Europe and the USA. From 1971 to 1986, Tarasov was a member of the contemporary jazz music trio GTC (Viatcheslav Ganelin, Vladimir Tarasov, Vladimir Chekasin). With the Trio and many other artists and orchestras he has recorded more than 100 records and CDs including numerous solo performances.

Tarasov also writes music for orchestra, film, and theatre. Selected works include: Black Square (dedicated to Kasimir Malevich), Moscow TV, 1987; En Quete d’une Fin Heureuse,Alhenafilm, Geneva, 1991; Der Trommler,Tempomedia, Düsseldorf, 1994; The Flies,Majestic Theater at The Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, 1995; Le Temps du Repli, Centre Choreographique National Orleans, Orleans, 1998; Persian,Meyerhold Theatre, Moscow, 2003; Even If You Return, Ulysses, Kunstfest, Weimar and The Last Landscape, Centre Choreographique National Orleans, 2004; and works for Arte France, Paris, 2006, Eudeka Media, Poland, Yleisradio, Finland, 2009, etc.

Tarasov is equally engaged in the visual arts, both solo, and in collaboration with artists such as Ilya Kabakov and others. He has participated in many one-person and group exhibitions, including: Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, 1991; La Biennale de Venezia, Venice, 1993; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1993; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1995; Leopold Hoesch Museum, Duren, 1998; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 2000; State Tretyakov Gallery, Moskow; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2004; The State Russian Museum St. Petersburg, Ludwig Museum in The Russian Museum, 2003, 2005; National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), Moscow, 2006, 2008, 2011; Copper Smithy, Fiskars, Finland, 2006; 2ndand 3rdBiennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2007, 2009; El Pabellon de las Artes, EXPO-2008, Zaragoza; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, 2008, RAM radioartemobile, Roma, 2011, Museum Sztuki in Lodz; KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn, 2016; Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 2018; etc.

In 2009, Vladimir Tarasov received the Triumph Prize in Moscow, which is Russia's independent prize for the highest achievement in literature and art. He was awarded Lithuania’s National Culture and Arts Prize in 2016.

Tarasov has performed with such musicians as Andrew Cyrille, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Anthony Braxton, Lauren Newton, etc.

Michael Bruckner

Michael Bruckneris a guitarist, composer and sound artist who lives near Vienna, Austria. He is working on several projects in the fields of improvised and composed new music, experimental folk music, re-interpretations of classical songs, sound objects and macro-photography. Nature is one of his main interests. After years of studying insects and developing music inspired by that study, his main focus now is on woods, trees, plants and forms of communication with them.

Selected projects include: Attosphere (Songs from R.Schumann), Niftys (Nu-Klezmer), makroPHONIA (an Austrian-Pakistani-Project), Maja Osojnik Band (Slovenian Folk & Impro-Experiment), Exit Eden feat. Phil Minton (Songs of Innocence by William Blake), ERDKOBOLD ERNI (musical theater for children), Klangvorhang / WERK 5 (sound installations).

bruckner.klingt.org

Daniel Lercher

Daniel Lercher(b.1983, Austria) is a musician, composer and sound artist currently based in Vienna. He is a graduate of the course in computer music and electronic media at the Vienna Institute for composition and electroacoustics. Lercher’s work focuses on electroacoustic composition/improvisation, live-electronics, phonography, installations, music for dance and film, etc. His list of activities includes around 300 concerts, installations and residencies on four continents. He collaborates frequently with numerous national and international musicians and artists from other fields. So far there are more than twenty releases on different sound carriers, either as a solo artist or in collaborations. 

lercher.klingt.org

Ivan Cheng

Ivan Cheng is an Australian artist whose practice focuses on modes of reading, often gesturing toward systems of power and reproduction. He also works as a performer, clarinettist, curator and writer. In 2017, received an MFA in Critical Studies (Sandberg Instituut), having previously studied at the Royal Academy of Music and Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Text-based performances of his have been presented in Sydney, London, Vilnius, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Berlin and New York. He initiates project space bologna.cc in Amsterdam.

Marcus Whale

Marcus Whale lives and works on Gadigal land in Sydney, Australia. His work across music, performance and text focuses on the blurry, haunted intersection between desire and religion, often with reference to the poetics of memory and ghostliness. His recent performance works Praise! (in collaboration with Eugene Choi) and the Luciferseries (in collaboration with Athena Thebus) have been presented by Performance Space, Sugar Mountain Festival, Underbelly Arts Festival and Art Month Sydney. He has performed in and composed for works by Agatha Gothe-Snape, Ivan Cheng, Martin Del Amo and Jess Olivieri.
As a musical artist under his own name and with groups Collarbones and BV, his recorded output primarily forms an electronic world around his singing. Ensemble Offspring, The Song Company, Synergy Percussion and others have performed his compositions for small ensemble across Australia and internationally, while Claire Edwardes and Zubin Kanga have released recordings of his solo pieces.

Julia Reidy

Julia Reidy is an Australian musician currently based in Berlin. She makes music for acoustic and electric guitar, ensembles, and she makes electro-acoustic works. Her musical approach generally involves manipulating material derived from unstable harmonies and rhythms. She has performed internationally, and frequently, as a soloist and with SPOILER, the Splitter Orchestra, Tennis of All Kinds and Dazey Arujo.

Biberkopf is interested in creating autonomous ecologies that become independent of himself. He has previously worked intensively with aural signifiers, signs and memes, exploring the semiotics of sound. Biberkopf has developed a practice which has been variously called sculptural, theatrical and cinematic.

Biberkopf has presented works and collaborations at Barbican Centre (UK), Berghain (DE), CAC (LT), Haus Der Kunst (DE), HEAD Geneva (CH), Pompidou (FR), Rupert (LT), Sonic Acts (NL), Studium Generale Rietveld (NL), The Kitchen (US), Unsound (PL), Venice Biennale (IT), etc. He was a member of the curatorial teams of the Newman Festival (2015), and of the Unthinkable Nomos research project and events series (2016).

Edgars Rubenis

Edgars Rubenis is a Latvian electronic musician who, in his compositional and concert practice, is concerned with improvisatory (yet premeditated) music. Rooted in traditions of musical and visual minimalism (La Monte Young, Eliane Radigue, Eleh, Kazimir Malevitch, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt), Rubenis creates long-duration works that explore notions of emptiness, zeroing in and out, and abandonment of the known self. By using a reduced and abstracted version of drone/ambient music, Rubenis attempts to create situations in which experiences of varied time scales and varied notions of personal space become possible. He therefore sees reduction and abstraction as more than mere aesthetic choices; in their function they become actual “makers of space” and “shifters of time.”

Aside from his solo practice Rubenis is one of the two founding members, together with drummer Edgars Eihmanis, of the experimental rock ensemble Mona De Bo. Created in 2005, Mona De Bo has often been noted as one of the most artistically vivid and daring rock music ensembles to have originated in the Baltic states since early 2000s. Rubenis has been involved as composer and guitar player for all of the band’s studio releases up to 2017. Mona De Bo has frequently toured the Baltic states, Europe, Russia and the USA. Its music has been played on BBC radio, and mentioned in reviews on such platforms as The Wire and The Quietus.

So far Rubenis has released one solo record, Mythoscope, published in 2014 by Latvian record label and originators of the renowned festival of adventurous music Skaņu Meža Ieraksti. Since 2012 he has been living in the Netherlands where he is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in electronic music and composition at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague.

edgarsrubenis.lv

Johannes Bergmark

Johannes Bergmark makes musical performance art and musical object theatre. An improvising musician, experimental musical instruments maker, writer and electroacoustic- and text-sound-composer, Bergmark has been a touring freelance musician since he graduated as a piano builder in 1996. He also lectures, runs pedagogical projects and workshops focusing on untraditional acoustics. He resides in Göteborg, where he is at present a Master’s student at HSM, and Stockholm, where he is active in Fylkingen (the society for radical and experimental art), EMS (Elektronmusikstudion) and Surrealistgruppen.

bergmark.org

Burkhard Beins

Burkhard Beins (b.1964, Germany) a composer and performer of experimental music who has been based in Berlin since 1995. He is known for his use of percussion in combination with selected sound objects. He also works with live-electronics/analog synthesisers and has conceived several sound installations. Alongside his solo work he is a member of the ensembles Polwechsel, Activity Center, The Sealed Knot, Perlonex, Sawt Out, Trio Sowari, and Splitter Orchester, and also works with composers/musicans such as Sven-Åke Johansson, Andrea Neumann, Keith Rowe, Chris Abrahams, Axel Dörner, John Tilbury, or Charlemagne Palestine.

Since the late 1980s he has been performing at internationally renowned venues and festivals throughout Europe, America, Australia and Asia as diverse as the LMC Festival (London), Int. Ferienkurse (Darmstadt), SKIF (St. Petersburg), Musiktage (Donaueschingen), Musique Action (Nancy), Choppa Festival (Singapore), Cave 12 (Geneva), The Now Now (Sydney), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Kaleidophon (Ulrichsberg), Kid Ailack Music Hall (Tokyo), Gaudeamus Festival (Amsterdam), Liquid Architecture (Australia), Meteo (Mulhouse), Taktlos (CH), Berghain (Berlin), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), Serralves (Porto), Wien Modern (Vienna), MoMA (New York), New Music Festival (Hanoi), Irtijal (Beirut), or Maerzmusik (Berlin).

Burkhard Beins has been Artist-in-Residence at Künstlerhäuser Worpswede (2009), EMS Stockholm (2014), Muong Studios, Hoa Binh/Vietnam (2015), and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva/Florida (2017).

He gives workshops based on his graphic score system Adapt/Oppose, has published several articles on music theory, and is a co-editor of the bookEchtzeitmusik Berlin - Self-Defining a Scene,as well as the curator of a follow-up 3CD compilation featuring the Berlin Echtzeitmusik scene. Meanwhile he has released more than 50 CDs and LPs on labels such as Zarek, Erstwhile, Hat Hut, Potlatch, Absinth, God Records, Herbal, Mikroton, and Confront.

burkhardbeins.de

Thanos Chrysakis

Thanos Chrysakis (b.1971, Greece) is a composer, musician, producer and sound artist. He was born in Athens. After residing in the UK between 1998-2014 he moved to Belarus. In addition to the several albums to his name, his work has appeared in festivals and events in several countries, including CYNETart Festival, Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden; TU, Berlin; Artus Contemporary Arts Studio, Budapest; CRUCE Gallery, Madrid; Fylkingen, Stockholm; Relative (Cross) Hearings Festival, Budapest; Festival Futura, Crest-Drôme; FACT Centre, Liverpool; Association Ryoanji, Ahun-Creuse; The Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale, New Hampshire; IBeam, New York; UC San Diego, California; Berner Münster, Switzerland; Splendor, Amsterdam; Logos Foundation, Ghent; Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest; Spektrum, Berlin; Susikirtimai X, Vilnius; Festival del Bosque GERMINAL, Mexico City; ДОМ, Moscow; Oosterkerk, Amsterdam; KLANG !, Montpellier; Center for New Music, San Francisco; Västerås Konstmuseum, Västerås; Störung Festival, Barcelona; BMIC Cutting Edge concert series at The Warehouse, London.

His music has been frequently aired by BBC Radio 3, RAI Radio 3, RTP Antenna 2, RTV España Radio 3, RTÉ Lyric FM, Polskie Radio, RTS, Radio Belgrade 3, and Sveriges Radio P2 among other radio-stations. His music was amongst the selected works at the 32nd International Competition de Musique et d'Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges 2005, in the category œuvre d'art sonore électroacoustique, and he received an honorary mention in 2006 at the 7th International Electroacoustic Composition Competition Musica Vivain Lisbon, the jury having consisted of Morton Subotnick (USA), François Bayle (France), and Miguel Azguime (Portugal).