Preview: Atonal Festival 2016

 
Art & Culture

As August and the summer reach an end, Berlin Atonal is on the approach. The festival has solidified a reputation of showcasing live music and art produced by forerunning acts in the electronic left field. Artists bend not only the genres of techno, electronica, industrial sound and noise, but often merge music with light and AV installations. 

The line up for 2016 is extensive, featuring many rare performances and unique collaborations, and acts that need no advocation (Donato Dozzy, Moritz Van Oswald, Silent Servant and other techno heavyweights are playing). Ahead of the opening this Wednesday, we’ve selected a few performances which we’re hungrily anticipating:

Death in Vegas Presents Transmission

The collaboration between DIV and former porn actress Sasha Grey proved fruitful after the release of their album, Transmission, earlier this year. This live performance of the project will see new the material preformed in a specially conceived audio-visual show. If we know anything from Richard Fearless, it’s that the narrative and scope of this performance will make it one not to miss. Death in Vegas will headline the main stage on the Saturday night. 

Porter Ricks Live 

Porter Ricks sees the collaboration between to sound engineering heavyweights. Thomas Koner and Andy Mellwig worked together on Chain Reaction (1996) and Millie Plateaux (1997). Ten years later, they have a new release lined up with Tresor Records. Koner’s background as a reputed visual artist and Mellwig’s history of collaborations is sure to see a meeting of two luminous minds for this live AV show. Porter Ricks will play on Sunday on the Main Stage. 

Croatian Amor presents Love Means Taking Action

Loke Rahbek, is known predominantly for being part of the vanguard running Danish label, Posh Isolation. Under his eye, the label in its growing popularity has veered away from thumping a banal set of releases that all drum the same tune. Instead, Posh Isolation has a reputation for remaining current, and musically cutting. His work under the Croatian Amor guise blurs the line between music and performance art. For Atonal, he presents an Live AV show as a world first. His set on Saturday promises a fusion of post industrial sound with elements of of synth punk and pop. 

Lena Willikens 

A woman in command of her craft, Willikens’ sets are bold, relentless and often unpredictable. As a selector, her sets are well thought out in narrative progression, with a skill few DJs manage to master these days. Having seen her play in a few different locations, her sound is shaped by setting and time, so her performance in the gaping halls of Kraftwerk will no doubt be unique and consuming. Lena Willikens will play at the Globus early Sunday morning. 

Steina and Woody Vasulka Retrospective 

The early film and synthesised video this couple, married in 1964, will be presented On Friday from 18:00 at Stage Null . The couple pioneered many elements of video art technology after moving to New York to found The Kitchen in Greenwich Village – one of the most legendary multimedia centres in the world. They pioneered many aspects of the nature of video technology, the camcorder and the monitor and all intermediary functions, whether in form of feedback or image synthesisers.

The Projektionsraum Video Installations 

This site specific installation space will display the work of a different artist each evening. Among them is American-based, Chinese born Yuxi Cao. His work, “Macrocosm,” is based around self-generative software which will generate digital artefacts that survive and evolve from simple to complex organic creatures based on their own immanent laws of interaction. It will appear in the space on Thursday evening. 


Buy tickets and find out more HERE

Comments are closed.