The first results of the 2008 edition of dkfrf

This year has started with some encouraging recognition. In Regensburg an enthousiasmised Albert Plank set up his version of dkfrf. He got financial help by the Graz Kunstverein. I was invited to perform there myself, and thus met the people from pomodoro bolzano who back in 2007 were involved in the second life version of the festival, so thoroughly curated by Björn Eriksson.

Another recognition came from Australian angelic sounds explorer Jodi Rose, who, as an artist in residence to Gallery Program set up a two days meeting evolving around the theme sound constructions. The festival took up the second day.

On the first day of that symposium some fine sonic events got introduced, one of them being tuned city. The organisers are playing with the idea to give dkfrf a place in their 6 days programme this coming summer.

Meanwhile the 2008 edition of the festival started on the evening of 7 february when I did a recording on the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam. This recording can be found on aporee/maps search for amsterdam.

It continued later that month with a performance by Jodi Rose and Maria Keski Korsu. It was a joint work on a bridge under construction in Bangkok. Jodi expressed the great idea that the tuning of a bridge could serve as the prove that the construction was done right. While the video works of Maria showed the workers and the wind on the bridge, Jodi's sounds came along. Unfortunately her computer started to hick-up just as I was about to flow with the sonic stream. A few last grumps and the computer crashed,(and died a few weeks later).

Jodi remained a file rouge. At Wendel she came with her fellow Aussies Somaya Langley and Rob Curgenven. But on that day I was close to dying, completely knocked out by the one day flu that is hoovering souls all over the globe. I think Somaya's performance was a very rafinated composition of swirling and spiraling sounds, but I am not sure. I only know the audience was completely absorbed and silenced. Jodi chose for a different presentation, introducing the singing bridges as old friends. But by that time I was to weak to get anything to me. (At the symposium I heard her fairytale like statement that I liked so much, about the earth transmitting sounds that only bridges could pick up. And there (at the symposium) she played a recording of a bridge actually picking up radiowaves and transmitting them.
By the time Rob played I was hallucinating on my bicycle wondering if I ever would get home. Rob played a legendaric set at the second edition of the festival in early 2007. This evening, it was different, since he had chosen to reconstruct an organ, using drinking glasses and their feedback. Our first hour fan and supporter Gerd Gebhard told me about Rob's performance, and the impressive impact it had on the body. He called it a unique experience.

The sound construction theme on march 9 on a sunday afternoon in Berlin Mitte gave me the opportinity to experiment with the presentation. I invited old and new friends, and made sure that not only the images but also the stage would disappear, only to come back as a postcard and an immediate historifisation of the afternoon.

It started with Momus presenting visual field recordings. Thanks to co-gallerist Carson Chan, his marketing strategies and a sponsorship he had managed to get twenty program friends to his gallery. Young people they were, most of them completely unknown of the fact that 'field recordings' existed. Momus showed the visual sonic results from a workshop he did with young people in Venice. Then he stepped aside from the laptop and read from his ipad (I think it was something imac) words and names, and turned the space into a class room. Now that was fun. The next filming showed poetic images from Japan, and a voice over battling with the wind. I couldn't follow his discourse (i heard the word "schizophonia"), but was amused by his presentation, and the almost tirannic influence on young people that were under the spell of an enthousiastic lecturer.

Udo showed his maps, and surprised some of the audience by the possibilities that google maps offered. Now Udo is a big programming wizzard. His telephone can be used as a microphone and a tool to upload recordings to his maps. Us mortals have to be satisfied by phoning in, and running home to give the exact coordinates. But the result is a kind of digital answering machine. You can subscribe to it, and listen to new messages out of the unknown, every morning.
His latest atribution to the maps is a mixing effect. He simulated a soundwalk from his home to the Invalidenstrasse, and in this way built the perfect bridge to the next performance.

Kim Cascone streamed in from somewhere on the coast of California. A very impressive wall of sounds that were taken from recordings by Leif Boman. The latter had taken the rocks and stones from a bombed house (this is Sarajevo 1998) to built a wall around a soldiers HQ with it. Through heating the stones he could learn from the frequencies the composition of the rocks. Frequencies can be translated into sounds, and this is what he did. A great piece by both of them.

Seiji Morimoto confused the audience when suddenly during Kim's fade out, other sounds came crackling in. In fact he was on the streets with a microphone, transmitting sounds he encountered to the gallery. By this time the gallery space was slowly disappearing from the concert context. And after the radio silence, there were only two postcards left: one form California, again to be seen on maps, and the other one showing a visual field recording of the audience waiting for the show to begin. They were watching it, knowing in their heart that the show was almost history.