Cooperation between Vietnamese and German sound artists in Hanoi will be continued this autumn in Berlin.
The first phase of the BLIND SIGNAL VTNM - GRMN project took place in April. Six musicians from Berlin and Hanoi came together for a week at the Goethe-Institut. These were Antye Grey-Ripatti aka AGF alias Poemproducer, Julius Holtz, Hương DonNa, Lương Huệ Trinh, Linh Hà and Gil Delindro. The program was initiated and organized by the Belgian-Vietnamese residency program "undecided productions".
The musicians explored the diversity of the tonal spectrum and sonic collaborations and offered public workshops and live shows. After a research phase, they presented the results of their collaboration at three concerts.
The project will enter the second project phase in September, supported by the Musikfonds e.V. In addition to the artists who worked together in Hanoi, Audrey Chen, Els Vandeweyer, Erik K. Skodvin and Sabine Ercklentz from the Berlin music scene will join.
It is going to be a week full of learning new sounds, rehearsing together, playing and at the same time preserving the uniqueness of their own sound art. The nine artists are promoting immersive group listening experiences fully stimulate by noise, silence, frequency, transmission, performativities of media objects, resonance and acoustics, while remaining sensitive to the individual complexities and poetics of each identities.
On Friday and Saturday, September 20 and 21, the artists will be presenting their work in the Kleine Wasserspeicher.
About Blind Signal
An artist exchange project composed of performances, sound installations and live-acts where the audience takes part in a new audiovisual and sound journey. This project is evolutionary and open to the artistic diversity of the musicians involved in the creative process. Time, space, acoustics and geography are the key elements.
The main goal of this project is to offer a bridge linking Berlin-based and Vietnamese sound artists in order to create a mutually beneficial exchange for artist and audience. Offering the participant artists not only the possibility to perform in different contexts, but above all the possibility to collaborate with artists from different backgrounds. We understand that project location has an undeniable impact on creation and this residency will offer sound artists an atypical space where their artistic compositions can reach wider public and creative dimensions, This project aims to develop connections between Vietnam and Germany, hoping that interesting new collaborations might emerge and continue beyond this specific event. by producing several live events where international German-based artists can collaborate with Vietnamese artists, giving all the opportunity to create rich new works.
sound artists
Hương DonNa
is lecturer in the Department of Musical Instruments at the National College of Art Education. Graduated from Music Education at National University of Art Education in 2013, jazz major at the Vietnam National Academy of Music in 2014 and master degree in Cultural Management at the National University of Art Education in 2016. In 2012, she achieved outstanding achievements in scientific research at National University of Art Education. In addition, she also studied courses at DomDom - The Hub For Experimental Music & Art, guided by artists Henrik Frisk, Stefan Östersjö and Trần Kim Ngọc.
During her artistic practice, she always tested the combination of objects in an extremely realistic way, combined traditional instruments with electronic divisions to tell her story.
Luong Hue Trinh
After studying in Vietnam National Academy of Music from 1998-2010, Luong Hue Trinh graduated her Bachelor with honors in Jazz Keyboard. In 2003, she was granted as Exceptional Student by the Yamaha Music Foundation, Japan. In 2010, she began to work in Electroacoustic music, and finally it became her main focus. She continued her work in this field under the guidance of Vietnamese composer Nguyen Xuan Son (SonX) and strongly influenced by his music. She participated shortly in DomDom – The Hub for Experimental Music & Art, Hanoi. From 2015-18, she has been awarded a full DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship for program “New Technique in Composition”, then Master program in Multimedia Composition with mentor Prof. Dr. Georg Hajdu and Composition with Prof. Elmar Lampson at the Hochschule für Musik & Theater Hamburg , Germany.
www.luonghuetrinh.com
Linh Ha
uses her voice, various percussive instruments, and a looper to create layered soundscapes. Incorporating elements from traditional Vietnamese vocal techniques, personal lyrical content and myriad influences - from pop to avant-garde to techno - her music ranges from dense, lush harmonies to sampled sizzling noise to gently ebbing hopeful lullabies. Her work has primarily occurred in the live realm and she has collaborated with numerous artists, both Vietnamese and foreign, who have lived, worked, or traveled through her hometown of Hanoi. More recently her work has found new support from different organizations such as FAMLAB (funded by British Council), Phu Sa Lab and VCCA. These opportunities allow her to expand not only the reach of her music but also to take in new music and other art from different cultures, bringing new inspiration and fresh energy.
www.facebook.com/linhhafornow
www.facebook.com/tinyhanoigiant
Antye Greie-Ripatti
(aka AGF, aka poemproducer) is a vocalist, digital songwriter, producer, performer, e- poet, calligrapher, digital, media artist and curator. She is known for artistic exploration of digital technology through the deconstruction of language and communication.
She has lead workshop and groups shows in Europe and the US. She has a subtle way of bringing in contemporary questions of cultural and political relevance into her work and into her interaction with other artists and the audiences.
www.poemproducer.com
Erik K Skodvin
currently lives and works in Berlin after a long period in Oslo.
He works freelance as graphic designer (miasmah design), mostly for record labels, artists and within music business. He also makes music himself under the aliases svarte greiner & deaf center + runs the record label miasmah.
miasmah.com
Els Vandeweyer
is a Belgian vibraphonist, percussionist, and composer currently living in Berlin. After studying classical percussion in Antwerp and jazz vibraphone in Brussels and Oslo, Els co-founded the IMI Kollektief, whose critically acclaimed album Snug as a Gun was released on Clean Feed in 2006. Today, Els plays regularly in Berlin, including solo performance, group improvisation, and contemporary music (including a performance of Xenakis’s Rebonds b at the A L'ARME! Festival in Berlin).
www.elsvandeweyer.com
Sabine Erckelentz
lives and works as a composer, musician and performer in Berlin. She first studied law at the FU Berlin, later trumpet / popular music at the Academy of Music Hanns-Eisler. Her works are often located in the musical border areas and beyond fixed genre boundaries. In addition to the usage of extended playing techniques on the trumpet, she often uses live electronics in her concert performances. In doing so, "the music-making body on stage", "the interaction between performer and the media" as well as "the interconnection of the performers with each other" are frequently recurring themes.
Audrey Chen
is a 2nd generation Chinese/Taiwanese-American musician. She turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, in 2003 she begins new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic.
Since then, using the cello, voice and occasional analog electronics, Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of the homemade analog synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language.
www.audreychen.com
Julius Holtz
is sound artist and composer, inhabiting the intersection of club culture, sound art and film score. Through recontextualization of various formats and media, Holtz develops new fields of artistic experiments. Breaking new ground within the field of electronic music, he employs cutting edge technologies and creates 3D-sound installations. His portfolio contains music for ensembles, fine artists and choreographers. His works are internationally being presented at prestigious festivals and institutions such as Centro de Cultura Digital (Vakuum, Mexico City, 2014), Hamburger Bahnhof (Moriba lIlumine, Berlin 2017) Martin-Gropius-Bau (Cloud Seeding, Berlin 2018).
juliusholtz.de
Curator
Emilie Beffara
is musical & cultural producer in the fields of sound art and electronic music. She is co-founder of Blind Signal, which is a series of experimental, electroacoustic and contemporary music events in the beautiful space of the former church Galiläakirche, Berlin. Blind Signal facilitates artists’ performances inside this special venue, with its unique acoustic qualities. The church embraces two temporalities, architecture from early 20th century and a stage and surround sound system made for sound art.
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