Felicity Mangan is an Australian sound artist and composer based in Berlin, Germany since 2008. In different situations such as solo performance, collaborative projects with other musicians or installation. Felicity creates electronic music or electro-acoustic compositions either exploring the biorhythms and timbres of her field recordings or found sounds.

Felicity has played in collaborative projects Native Instrument (Shelter Press, Entr’acte) presenting electro-acoustic bug beats with vocalist Stine Janvin and Plants and Animalia with Christina Ertl-Shirley – grafting live and pre-recorded drones produced by remnants of plant biochemistry together with modified animal voices. Felicity has also released a solo publication on Longform Editions titled Stereo’frog’ic, a play on the word stereophonic –  presenting a sound piece, crafted from recordings of frogs, insects and other ‘vocal’ animals wavering about in a stereo field. More recently a tape release on Slovakian label Mappa Editions titled Creepy Crawly and Bell Metal Reeds (One Instrument).

Felicity has presented projects in many different settings such as galleries, parks, clubs and online formats. Including National Gallery Denmark, Technosphärenklänge CTM/HKW, Sonic Act Academy and Riversssound.org.

Tonight’s event will be hosted by Doron Sadja

Frank Bretschneider is a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin. His work is known for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures and its minimal, flowing approach. Bretschneider’s subtle and detailed music is echoed by his visuals: perfect translated realizations of the qualities found in music within visual phenomena.

Bretschneider (1956) was raised in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz since 1990), where his aesthetic developed as he listened to pirate radio and smuggled Beastie Boys tapes in the former East Germany. After studying fine arts and inspired by science fiction radio plays and films he began experimenting with tape machines, synthesizers, and modified guitars in 1984, as well as exploring the possibilities of exchange between visual art and music by various means such as film, video and computer graphics. In 1986, after establishing his cassette label klangFarBe, Bretschneider founded AG Geige, a successful and influential East German underground band. Though limited to the East before the wall came down, they were invited to perform across Germany and internationally after 1989 and released three albums before splitting in 1993. In 1995, Bretschneider and fellow AG Geige member Olaf Bender founded the Rastermusic record label which eventually merged with Carsten Nicolai’s noton to form raster-noton in 1999.

Peter Blasser is a designer of electronic instruments and one-of-a-kind in the world of synthesizer builders. His circuit designs catalyse philosophical concepts in the form of whimsical analog synthesizers that have been evolving since he started his company, Ciat-Lonbarde, in Baltimore more than 15 years ago.

Constantly rehashing his old designs, the instruments found in his now Berlin-based store can be traced back to some of his earlier designs, which are often idiosyncratically documented and generously shared in the form of downloadable circuits. Peter’s signature unmarked wooden instruments match his outlook on life, inviting users to share his intuitive and playful approach, which we enjoyed throughout our conversation. More akin to craft than industry, Blasser has used materials such as wood, paper, or fabric as a substrate for more sustainable circuits, re-imagining the role of electronics in a distant future.

Jessica Ekomane is a French-born and Berlin-based electronic musician and sound artist. Her practice unfolds around live performances and installations. She creates situations where the sound acts as a transformative element for the space and the audience. Her quadraphonic performances, characterized by their physical affect, seek a cathartic effect through the interplay of psychoacoustics, the perception of rhythmic structures and the interchange of noise and melody. Her ever-changing and immersive sonic landscapes are grounded in questions such as the relationship between individual perception and collective dynamics or the investigation of listening expectations and their societal roots. 2019 will see the release of her first LP via Important Records.

Jessica Ekomane was one of the composers chosen as collaborators by Natascha Süder Happelman for her installation at the German pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2019, alongside Maurice Louca, DJ Marfox, Jako Maron, Tisha Mukarji and Elnaz Seyedi. She’s also part of the SHAPE Platform roaster of artists for 2019. Run each year by a union of 16 festivals and art centres – including Berlin’s CTM Festival and Krakow’s Unsound Festival – SHAPE is dedicated to promoting emerging acts, interdisciplinary cooperation and creative experimentation. A Berlin Community Radio [INCUBATOR] resident for their 2017 edition, she now hosts a monthly show on Cashmere Radio. “Open Sources” is focused on linking folk and traditional music with contemporary musical experiments. Her work has been presented in various institutions across Asia, Australia and Europe such as CTM festival, KW (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), Dommune (Tokyo) and MUMA (Melbourne).

Hanna Hartman is a Swedish sound artist, composer and performer living in Berlin. Hartman studied Literature and Theater history at the Universities of Uppsala and Stockholm, Radio and Interactive Art at Dramatiska Institutet and Electroacoustic Music at EMS in Stockholm.

Since around 1990 she has composed works for radio, electroacoustic music, sound installtions and numerous performances all over the world. She does also write pieces for instrumentalists. Her many awards and grants include Prix Europa (1998), the Karl-Sczuka-Prize (2005), a Villa Aurora grant (2010), the Rosenberg Prize (2011) and the Phonurgia Nova Prize (2006 & 2016). During 2007 and 2008 she was Composer-in-Residence at the Swedish Radio. Her work has been presented in numereous concerts and festivals such as Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Darmstädter Ferienkurse (2012, 2014), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (2012, 2014), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2013,2016), el nicho aural, Mexico City (2014), Akousma, Montreal (2014), ECLAT festival, Stuttgart (2017), Cut & Splice Festival, Manchester (2017).

Having developed her very own language, the Swedish sound artist and composer Hanna Hartman creates compositions that are exclusively made up from authentic sounds which she has recorded around the world. Sounds are taken out of their original context and thus perceived in their purity. Hanna Hartman seeks to reveal hidden correspondences between the most diverse auditive impressions and in new constellations she creates extraordinary worlds of sound.