KOOKOO / 17 YRS anniversary / becoming air

Metamorphosis and transformation have always been driving forces in KOOKOO’s long history. For the 17th anniversary of the event series, two separate yet interlinked references invite to reflect on what has been and what may come: becoming air… is the title of a musical piece by composer Annea Lockwood and an essay by sonic theorist Gascia Ouzounian.

Lockwood’s piece for solo trumpet explores areas of fluctuating pitch and timbral instability, climaxing in roaring distortion. It can be understood as a manifestation in sound of what Ouzounian describes in her research: that a ‘simple but transcendent shift in perspective—to think not of leaving the ground but of “entering the air”—embodies the kind of perceptual reorientation needed […] to experience one’s body as a source and medium of vibration; to become a channel; to become entangled with architecture and space through sound.’

With these ideas at its foundation, KOOKOO invites a diverse ensemble of guests to share their artistic visions and celebrate 17 years of channelling vibrations. SABRINA GRICOURT focuses on the auditory aspect of her work, engaging with transformations across material, temporal, and perceptual fields marked by intensity and heightened awareness. Improviser and daxophone performer KAZUHISA UCHIHASHI collaborates with butoh artist YUKO KASEKI in order to interlink their practices and create a unique audio-visual experience. hÄK performs a live set on his custom ‘molecular synthesizer,’ driven by his interest in noise, electro-acoustics, and atonal music. RAMA plays one of her energetic and highly dynamic DJ sets that incorporate cuts, surprises, and unheard-of progressions while maintaining a deep sense of flow.

KOOKOO’s longstanding resident visual artists, CARLY FISCHER and YUKIHIRO TAGUCHI (a.k.a. mokume BERLIN), contribute even more of the artworks they have created specifically for the event series. The hosts MIEKO SUZUKI and ARA provide more sonic materializations of the thought of becoming air…, inspired by what Gascia Ouzounian writes: ‘if through sonic displacements and disorientations we experience ourselves as permeable and corruptible, as being both affected and affecting—as active participants and collaborators in the production of space—we too have a different sense of our own potentials, our own possibilities of being.’

Line-up: hÄK (1), Rama (2), Mieko Suzuki

Åldersgräns: 18+