PROGRAMME SEE BELOW
“Too little of improvised music survives recording. […] [Much] more important than the limitations of the technology is the loss during the recording process of the atmosphere of musical activity – the musical environment created by the performance […], which is one of the main strengths of improvisation.” (Derek Bailey)
“Preservation becomes even more invaluable in the case of improvisation, as the creative act exists within the time span of the performance and only in that time span.” (Gilles Mouëllic)
Improvised art lives decisively from the shared experience of events in specific spaces and situations in real time. Its characteristics are attributed to its immediacy and an auratised quality of liveness. Temporal and spatial co-presence as well as the inclusion of all actors on site – the particular composition of the performers, the audience, the space, the light, the acoustics, the atmosphere, etc. – are regarded as powerful constituents of the process design. What can be saved from this into a sphere of the media? Can the recording of an improvisation adequately represent this?
It has often been said that recordings of improvised music are inadequate or even inappropriate for the art form; one must witness the process of its creation live and experience it directly. Derek Bailey also made it clear in his book Improvisation. Its Nature and Practice in Music, that “there is something central to the spirit of voluntary improvisation which is opposed to the aims and contradicts the idea of documentation”. Even though Bailey refers primarily to academic analysis and audio recordings, his statements can also be read as a critique of audiovisual reproduction. But where would we be today – despite the difference between presence and representation – without the possibilities of film documentation? Where would we be without the recordings of improvised events and what treasures would not be available to us that would otherwise have disappeared from cultural memory forever?
Sceptical attitudes towards the recording and documentation process seem to have largely disappeared in our extensively mediatised world anyway. The omnipresence and self-evident nature of audiovisual representations of events has also spread to the improvised arts. But how can a live event be successfully translated into the medium of film? How does this change the live event? What possibilities exist in the medium of film to act improvisationally and to capture or transform moments of the depicted in a special aesthetic way in one’s own formal language? Can completely unique artistic forms emerge from the interaction between improvisation and the medium of film? Which moments of improvisation create aesthetic characteristics in film that convey meanings on a different level, both in terms of content and form? What possibilities of creative handling exist in the conscious examination of the difference between filmed improvisation and its media equivalent? What influence can the practice of documentation have retroactively on an improvisation? What artistic potential does the direct inclusion of filmic levels in improvised performances offer? These and other questions will be raised in the symposium and discussed on the basis of examples.
Conference Opening: Sound & Lecture N° 25: Film – Sound – Improvisation
To open the symposium, we are happy to host silent film pianist Eunice Martins. Together with a quartet of her choice (Simon Berz, Cecilia Caroline Tallone and Eric Wong) she will improvise to a total of five experimental silent films mostly from the 1910s to 1920s, followed by a talk with conference organiser Mathias Maschat.
Registration:
The symposium on Feb 1st–2nd, 2025, is open to the public and free of charge (on a donation basis). To attend, please register by January 26th, 2025. Your registration will be confirmed as soon as possible.
Please send your registration to Mathias Maschat via email: mm@exploratorium-berlin.de
The conference opening on January, 31st, 2025, is not included and is charged with a reduced price for symposium participants, who do not actively contribute. Also, an additional registration for the Opening Event is recommended, using the form on the website.
Friday, 31. Januar 2025
- 19:00–19:45 soundwalk with Thomas Gerwin
- 19:00–19:45 Exhibition: Cristina Marx/Photomusix (DE): Concerts at the exploratorium berlin – Anniversary Exhibition with Photographs
- 19:00–19:45 Exhibition: Tim Fletcher (GB): Eye of the Behearer – Exhibition of Posters from Lol Coxhill’s Archive – STUDIO 2 / 2ND FLOOR
- 19:00–19:45 Roberto Duarte (CL/DE): Noche – 1 Channel Video Installation – STUDIO 1 / BASEMENT
- 20:00–22:00 Sound & Lecture N° 25: Film – Sound – Improvisation | Symposium Opening Event – Music for experimental silent films with Eunice Martins, Simon Berz, Caroline Cecilia Tallone & Eric Wong + Talk with Eunice Martins
Saturday, 1. Februar 2025
- 9:30–10:00 Get in & Coffee
- 10:00–10:10 Mathias Maschat: Welcome Address
- 10:15–11:10 Helen Petts (GB): Solo Soprano – A Portrait of Lol Coxhill | Film & Talk
- 11:15–11:25 Tim Fletcher (GB): Eye of the Behearer – Exhibition of Posters from Lol Coxhill’s Archive – STUDIO 2 / 2ND FLOOR
- 11:30–12:00 Coffee Break
- 12:00–12:40 Markus Schmidt (DE): Reality/Truth/Realism – Editing Process of “LeMali70”
- 12:45–13:10 Jonathan Frank (DE): Improvisation in Film Montage – A Revision
- 13:15–14:45 Lunch Break
- 14:45–15:25 JJ Zana (FR/DE): Sampling Experimental Cinema
- 15:30–16:10 mcddavid (DE): From Strong Limitations to Chaos
- 16:15–16:45 Coffee Break
- 16:45–17:10 Jessica Argo (GB): Hybrid Piece GIOFEST XVI
- 17:15–17:40 Una MacGlone (GB): Multimodal Video Analysis as a Tool for Analysing Group Improvisation: An Exploration of Two Frameworks and Key Results from their Application
- 17:45–18:25 Jörg Hufschmidt, Jan-Peter Pudelek & Ulrike Schoeller (DE): Molecular Filming – Focusing on the In-Between
- 18:30–19:30 Supper Break
- 19:00–19:25 Bernadette Casu (DE): Improvisation for Take-Away: Dance with your Camera | Participatory Short-Workshop – STUDIO 2 / 2ND FLOOR
- 19:30–19:40 Makiko Nishikaze (JP/DE): lightshadow | Film with Live Music
- 19:45–20:10 Michael Vorfeld (DE): Lichtton | Film with Live Music
- 20:15–21:55 Jérémie Pujau (FR/DE): Go out and play | Film & Talk
Sunday, 2. Februar 2025
- 10:00–10:30 Get in & Coffee
- 10:30–11:55 Ebba Jahn (DE): Idea – Miniatures By Improvisers | Film & Talk
- 12:00–12:25 Zsolt Sőrés (HU/DE): Improvisation in Haptic Space
- 12:30–12:40 Roberto Duarte (CL/DE): Noche – 1 Channel Video Installation, featuring a live performance by Stefanie Alf (DE) – STUDIO 1 / BASEMENT
- 12:45–13:45 Lunch Break
- 13:15–13:40 Bernadette Casu (DE): Improvisation for Take-Away: Dance with your Camera | Participatory Short-Workshop – STUDIO 2 / 2ND FLOOR
- 13:45–14:25 Luis Lamadrid & Francisco Utray (ES): Videoacústica: Filming Free Improvisation and Random Video-Music Composition
- 14:30–15:25 Maja Cieślak, Michał Dębski, Maria Sakiewicz & Gabriela Wachowicz / Stowarzyszenie Szmery (PL): Moving Images with Music, Collectively. The Practical Side of Organising Events Focused on Improvisation and Film | Presentation & Participation (Open Stage)
