Tumult #6: Alchemy Unveiled
Tumult #6: Alchemy Unveiled
08.06.2024
20:30 – 23:00
Willem Twee, Toonzaal, Prins Bernhardstraat 4, 5211 HE ‘s-Hertogenbosch
Tickets HERE
Alchemy Unveiled is a performance evening inspired by the time of enlightenment of the 18th century, developed in collaboration between Willem Twee Studios in Den Bosch and the Instrument Inventors Initiative (iii) based in The Hague. The program will bring together emerging makers from Den Bosch with (inter)nationally recognised makers from the Netherlands and beyond. Creating a new podium where the worlds of art, science, and magic join in a mesmerising display with the backdrop of the former synagogue of Den Bosch.
Following the rapid discovery of new technologies during the industrial era, from the salons to the village square, audiences were captivated by the often theatrical showcases of scientific experiments. Alchemy Unveiled draws inspiration from this and invites the audience to experience this fascination for the sciences within the realm of new media art. Like its historical examples of the 19th century, the evening forges a connection between contemporary art and the elegant aesthetics of the Edwardian era. Reviving the spirit of the swell in the fields of art and science, infusing a touch of magic into this harmonious blend.
In a time when technology seems to develop at an ever faster pace and and often feels like a threat to many, the program aims to create a space in which the audience can engage with technology in a new way and experience a similar sense of fascination to the times of enlightenment.
Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand – Force Field
The Duo create multi-sensory installations and performances that merge physics, chemistry and computer science with uncanny philosophical practices. Investigating questions of perception and perpetuity, their artworks exist as ever-transforming phenomena offered for observation. Because these exotic physical phenomena take place directly in front of the observer without being intermediated, they serve to vastly extend the sensory threshold. The immediacy of this experience allows the observer to transcend the illusory distinction between scientific discovery and perceptual expansion.
During the Spacelab era, JPL researchers pioneered acoustic levitation techniques for trapping and rotating liquid samples in microgravity. In recent decades the selfsame methods have been implemented for contactless manipulation on Earth. In Force Field, acoustically levitated water droplets resonate, vaporize and reassemble into spheroids, toroids and oscillating polygons while spinning nearly devoid of shear. The performance simultaneously taps into the 3-dimensionality of sound, the elusive physicality of water, as well as the rotational dynamics of celestial and subatomic bodies.
Alban Karstan – The Last Expert
Alban Karsten is an artist who creates performances and sculptures out of a strong curiosity about “the other”. He regularly invites professionals from different fields – such as social psychologists, blacksmiths and a hypnotherapist – to collaborate with him on his projects. In these collaborations, he tries to integrate their methods and expertise into his work and thereby give them a major role in the outcome of the work. Through his projects, Alban explores what it takes to be an expert and what authorship and singularity mean when part of the direction is handed over.
In the lecture performance, The Last Expert, Alban Karsten elaborates on how he once joined the UFO hotline and conspiracy platform Niburu and how he became a chemtrail authority there before long by introducing himself as an expert in the field. The Last Expert is an exercise in case-building. Charts show how a conspiracy or an unveiled cover-up can cause collective outrage, which functions as a ritual and a means to enter into higher consciousness and enlightenment.
Stelios Manousakis – Network parasites (Hertzian Field #4)
Stelios Manousakis is an artist exploring relationships between time, space, body, system, and sound. His work is particularly concerned with the invisible and the ephemeral, and with shaping sensation, perception and experience in time. His practice lies in the convergence zones of art, philosophy, science and engineering; it extends from performances, to environments and interactive installations, to compositions, fixed media pieces, and music for dance and film.
Our hyper-connected lifestyle has flooded our spaces with oceans of radio waves and microwaves. While invisible, these waves are as real as the air we breathe; and while we lack the capacity to feel them, they can sense us because they interact with the water in our bodies. Our wireless infrastructures thus come with an unpublicized glitch: beyond our data, they also broadcast information about physical space and our bodies within it. In this lecture-performance, Stelios explores how advertisers, the surveillance industry, law enforcement, Big Tech, and other dubious actors are beginning to reimagine our networks as human radars.
Dudù Kouate and Ziv Taubenfeld
Dudù Kouate was born in Senegal into a family of griots and keeps the African cultural and musical tradition alive in all his music. The drummer and percussionist is a member of the renowned Art Ensemble of Chicago and collaborates with numerous inspiring musicians such as Moor Mother and Arúan Ortiz. The Israeli bass clarinetist Ziv Taubenfeld currently lives in Portugal and was active for many years in the Amsterdam jazz and improvisation scene. Besides his own ensemble Full Sun, he plays with musicians like Wilbert de Joode, Hamid Drake, Marta Warelis, and Luis Vicente.
In their musical world, this duo is constantly searching for a place where tradition and experimentation coexist in harmony. A place where you can be freer and spread the message of unity through sound.
Dudù Kouate – percussion
Ziv Taubenfeld – bass clarinet
All Us Dada
ALL US DADA is a journey through the deeper layers of our systems, written and performed by Gerindo Kartadinata with a soundtrack by Gerri Jäger. A gripping monologue as a means to not slip into madness. Our everyday reality is full of contradictions that tear us apart and alienate us from nature. Exploitation, abuse, and deception are plentiful. ALL US DADA gives a voice to the critique of the economic system and the necessity to confront and overcome injustices. Gerindo Kartadinata’s performance is musically complemented by the progressive drummer Gerri Jäger. Drum sounds are live-processed and linked to synthesizers and sequencers, creating a broad palette of sounds with multiple layers and atmospheres.
Gerri Jäger – drums, electronics
Gerindo Kartadinata – text, voice
Sandor Caron – sound
