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33rd Koblenz Guitar Festival & Academy | Sunday 1st - Monday 9th June 2025

Soundart Koblenz Guitar Festival & Academy 2022

Sunday 29 MAY - MONDAY 6 JUNE 2022
"eyes & ears" Soundinstallations for Koblenz Guitar Festival & Academy 2022
Vernissage 29 May 5 pm at the Rhein-Mosel Halle

JUAN BERMUDEZ

"...Y yo me quedo cantando aqui" "...and I stay here and sing" Zinc tubs, tranducer, sound composition, origami paper boats

My grandmother used to sing an old song for a long time. The song is called "se va la lancha" (the boat leaves) or in another version "La lancha".

A woman singing about a man who went to sea and never returned is a common theme in many cultures. The installation uses different songs in a poetic representation of this situation. The sound of the song itself moves the water in zinc tubs and the origami boat in it. A parallel to the Loreley only a few kilometers up the Rhine, which distracted the boatmen with its song and beauty, so that they crashed and drowned and thus never returned, is quite intentional.

“Se va, se va, la lancha
se va con el pescador
y en esa lancha que cruza el mar se va también mi amor.

¿Quién sabe hasta cuando
la lancha no volverá?
y yo me quedo cantando aqui: se va, se va, se va.”

“The boat is leaving, it is leaving
it leaves with the fisherman
and in that boat that crosses the sea my love is leaving too.
who knows until when the boat will not return? and I'm left singing here: it goes, it goes, it goes.”

DANBI JEUNG / JUAN BERMUDEZ

"Look at the other side" two TV screens with complimentary video installation, loudspeaker

Look at the other side - It is often used as advice to look at the situation from a different perspective. But in this work, however, it is used in its literal sense. If guitars, bouquets of flowers and teabags had eyes and ears, what would they hear and see? And besides, what if they could play instruments, eat and drink like humans?

LEON SENGER

subject unknown - iteration II (2022) Istallation from small sketch sheets, 5 channel sound

Paper cuttings, detached from the format of the page, balance in space - on top of you drawings. Each of these drawings seems at first chaotic on its own; in their totality it becomes apparent that they each show an excerpt from actually boundless complex structures in various densities and sizes. Between the slowly moving papers, loudspeakers appear again and again, from which all the faster sounds emerge. The energy of the drawing process

and the question of where the improvised textures actually originate come to life again through the sound composition. The sonic part of this work thus initially has its origin in the drawing itself, but also points beyond it and offers numerous points of contact and space for associations.

Leon Senger works directly with the connection between sound and image. He draws small-scale line squiggles in an almost automatic process. With several microphones he records the sounds of this process. In the work, this 2-dimensional drawing combines with the sound to form a three-dimensional space.

NICOLA HEIN

PLAYSTATION 4200

Playstation 4200 is constructed out of a round table, 2 headphones, amplifier, sound objects, 12 guitar strings, 2 guitar pickups and metal frame. The visitors are invited to experiment with the objectsplaying the string and listen to the result via headphone

Being constructed like this, it has a certain structural analogy to an electric guitar and playing on it has a certain analogy to playing prepared guitar (with all the historical connotations of this instrument and the tradition that is referenced as soon as it is practiced). But this makes the fundamental assumption of the work come through: Although it is structurally analogue to an electric guitar, the relation to it is a very different one.

It confronts the audience with a game that does not have a world picture. The audience is thrown back on itself, finding itself in a situation that asks for making up a world picture through the intuitive use of the object.

This process of conceptualizing, playing, experimenting, is an essentially communicative act. The

visitors are playing with the object and make up the rules of the game as they play, they find their rules individually as well as communicatively. The openness of the situation asks for invention, as there is no set mode of conduct, no game. As human beings think from different angles, it is possible to watch and listen to people communicatively making up their own, individual world pictures while they are making sound on the Playstation 4200.

Playing becomes more than itself: Now it is a epistemological, (music)ontological act, that asks for a specific responsibility and openness for the (unforeseen) action of the other and the development of the situation, which opens the view to the wide assumptions we make as we are creating sound.

Making up a world as one plays

Shown at the Opening Festival Trier 2014, the Laut Festival
Mainz 2014, Silence/Cologne 2015, Linux Audio Conference
Mainz 2015 and now in Koblenz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uUlepqMLzs&feature=emb_imp_woyt

WINGEL MENDOZA

Con el ser somos sonoros - with the being we are sounds Bio art for Ficus Robusta

The belief that plants cultivate us stems from the fact that they are the ones that feed us, give us oxygen and even satisfy our senses such as sight, smell and taste. They also help to cure certain illnesses. But these phenomena sometimes go unnoticed. Through the bio-art installation “With the beings we are sounds” these manifestations are amplified transforming them into actions that can be perceived in real time with different actions such as listening, we can feel the presence of the plant manifesting itself.

Kurzbios

JUAN DAVID BERMÚDEZ

(*1994 IN BOGOTÁ, COLUMBIA)

is a Colombian sound artist, composer and music producer. His work as an artist negotiates the experiential nature of and relationships between sound, space and time. Juan David studied music and sound engineering at the University Javeriana in Colombia. He was part of the experimental music ensembles Time Canvases and Indemo, that perform and compose music in non-conventional settings, hoping to create experiences in which the music becomes part of everyday situations.

Since 2021 he has been studying sound art composition at the HfM Mainz and has exhibited at the SoundSeeing festival in Münsterland and at Klangkunstfestival Opening in Trier, among others. He was awarded the Deutschland Stipendium and will receive the Cultural Promotion Award Rotary Club Mainz-Churmeyntz in 2022.

https://juandavid712.wixsite.com/dbermudez

DANBI JEUNG

(*1991 IN SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA)

studied instrumental and electronic composition in Seoul, Hanover and Karlsruhe, including as a master student with Prof. Wolfgang Rihm. Since 2019, she has been continuing her sound art studies in parallel with Prof. Peter Kiefer, Prof. Stefan Fricke and Prof. Frauke Eckhardt at the Hochschule für Musik in Mainz. In her works she works with the connection of sound, theater and text and includes natural, social and psychological phenomena. In 2021 he exhibited at the festival SoundSeeing in Münsterland and at Klangkunstfestival Opening in Trier and her string quartet 51:49' was premiered in Seoul by INO (International Intercourse of New music organization) with the support of the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture. In March 2022 there was the premiere of her work Trauerfeier für Künstler conducted by Ulrich Wagner at the Badisches Staatstheater. She received the Germany Scholarship and is supported by the German Music Council - Neustart Kultur Scholarship in 2022.

http://danbijeung.com/

NICOLA HEIN (ALUMNUS)

(*1988 IN DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY)

studied jazz guitar, sound art composition , Philosophy and German philology at the University of Bonn and at the University of Mainz. He was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York, where he worked with Prof. George E. Lewis and is currently completing his Ph.D..

His artistic work as sound artist, guitarist and composer Nicola L. Hein (born 1988 in Düsseldorf) is determined by intermedial interaction of sound and space, light and movement in aesthetic systems. He works with mechanical and electronic extensions of synthesizers and electric guitar, with sound installations and video projections. Nevertheless, his musical performances are based on spontaneity in aesthetic action.

In his work as a sound artist he builds installations, sculptures, instruments, researches the interaction of sound, material and space, works with field recordings, programs (intelligent) software systems, creates a multitude of intermedial works, engages in network technologies and artistically develops dances of agency between the human, nature and technology. 

With the support of the Goethe Institute and many other institutions, his artworks have been realized in more than 30 countries worldwide. He has collaborated with many of the world's most renowned musicians in the field of improvised music. He also works as a researcher in the field of aesthetics and lectures at various institutions around the world.

He studied sound art composition with Prof. Peter Kiefer at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz School of Music from 2015 to 2018, graduating with a Master of Music in 2018.

He currently holds a professorship in sound art at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. He is a member of the Junge Akademie | Mainz.

Nicola L. Hein

WINGEL MENDOZA

(*1982 IN MEXICO CITY, MEXICO)

studied composition at Trinity College London and the Rotterdam Conservatory. He completed the master class in composition at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg with Robert H.P. Platz and is currently a master student in the Sound Art Composition program in Mainz.

His works expand the contexts of sounds through his own analog, digital instruments or external electronic sources and in interaction with other arts. In 2021 he was a scholarship holder in the artist village Schöppingen for half a year and received the cultural promotion award Rotary Club Mainz-Churmeyntz. In 2021 he exhibited at the festival SoundSeeing in Münsterland and at Klangkunstfestival Opening in Trier. In March/April this year he was invited for several lectures and workshops by Parque Cultural Reynosa, Mexico and had a composition commission for the play "Behalt das Leben lieb" at the Hessisches Staatheater Wiesbaden.

https://wingel82.wixsite.com/wingelmendoza

© Credits / Photo: Asja Schubert

LEON SENGER

(*1995, WIESBADEN, GERMANY)

is a drummer, improvisor and sound artist. In 2020 he finished his Bachelor studies in Jazz & Pop Music at the ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem (NL). There he discovered his affinity with improvised music and research into sounds in his lessons with Etienne Nillesen among others. As a consequence, he decided to expand his artistic practice beyond the purely musical and has been studying sound art composition with Peter Kiefer at the HfM Mainz since October 2021. He is currently exploring drawing from the perspective (or with the "listening attitude") of an artist interested in sounds, combining visual and sonic textures. Among other things, a scholarship for the 8th international Winter Campus of the „Künstlerstadt Kalbe“ offered him the opportunity to develop these concepts at the beginning of this year.

https://soundart.uni-mainz.de/category/students/

Frauke Eckhardt

Audiovisuelle Kunst/Klangkunst

Ihre Klanginstallationen und Klanginstrumente entwickeln räumlich-zeitliche Displays eigenzeitlichen Erlebens und nonverbaler Kommunikation. Rezipient:innen werden für den künstlerischen Prozess unabdingbar.

Sie lehrte 2010/11 „Audiovisuelle Kunst“ an der Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar in Saarbrücken. Seit WS 2020 ist sie Gastprofessorin für Sound II an der Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln und lehrt seit 2022 im Studiengang „Klangkunst-Komposition“ an der Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

www.fraukeeckhardt.de

foto: le

PETER KIEFER

is sound artist, composer and sound researcher.
His compositions and sound art works always focus on space as a central theme and have been performed anmd exhibited internationally.

He taught at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and since 2001 he is professor at the School of Music at Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz. In 2010 he initiated the Master Studies program „Sound Art-Composition“ and is head of the Department „Sound ArtComposition“.

In 2018 he was awarded as research fellow for sound reserach at Gutenberg Research College for the project A.R.S. Art - Research Sound

Photo: Nicola Hein

https://ars.uni-mainz.de/research-associates/
https://www.musik.uni-mainz.de/lehrende/peter-kiefer/

SOUND ART-COMPOSITION CLASS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC MAINZ

The Mainz School of Music is the first school of music in Germany to offer a Master’s degree in Sound Art-Composition. Since 2010 this study program invites musicians and artists who are seeking to enhance their artistic competencies in the area of sound art and composition. Since 2019 it has also been possible to study as a „Meisterschüler“ in the third stage.

The program is based on the latest developments in the intermediary concepts of music and art. Trends in sound art, audio-visual art, electronic composition, new music, and radio arts, the Ars Acustica, are combined into a thematic unity. Compositional approaches with a focus on spatialization and intermedia composition strategies are examined and refined at the highest artistic levels.

One focus is on sounding space - especially public space. The students develop spatial sound or sound installations as well as performative concepts, audio plays, concerts and media representations.

Very recently, the class Sound Art Composition presented works in the context of the festival SOUNDSEEING 2021 at the Kulturgut Haus Nottbeck and the Kunstverein Münsterland in Coesfeld. As well as at the festival OPENING in Trier where 15 works were shown in several locations in Trier, including the Karl-Marx-Haus, Museum am Dom and the Simeonstift next to Porta Nigra.

Students of the Master’s program were awarded numerous prizes: Operare Berlin 2010, Sound of E-Motion RWTH Aachen 2011, Kalkhof-Rose Scholarship, Rotary Cultural Promotion Prize, Artists' Scholarships New York of the Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia, numerous residencies including Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, tokio wonder site and Sapporo in Japan and they have participated in exhibitions at the Kommunikationsmuseum Frankfurt and at the Art Basel. The sound-light-space resonate was shown at the festival >Luminale< in Frankfurt and afterwards in the cube of the ZKM Karlsruhe at the exhibition Sound Art.

Univ.-Prof. Peter Kiefer is the head of the department, currently Prof. Stefan Fricke, Prof. Dr. Salomé Voegelin and Lawrence Abu Hamdan also teach here.

Visiting professors have been: Prof. Dr. Florian Dombois, Prof. Alvin Curran, Prof. Miya Masaoka, Prof. Bernhard Leitner, Prof. Anke Eckardt, Andres Bosshard and Kaspar König.

Kontakt: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

https://soundart.uni-mainz.de | www.musik.uni-mainz.de