23 01, 2007

ClubTransmediale 2007

"Building Space" means making room: not a room with four walls, a floor, a ceiling and a doorway, but a play-room that invites experimentation and offers new insights, and that consequently has a socio-political impact.

The term "space" hence implies more than only physical or geographical constructs. It describes various constellations and relationships that structure the flow of information, our perception and communication. Its decisive characteristics are expansion and limitation - space arises from a number of defined parameters which fence off a 'sphere', within which a specific regularity and particular qualities are inherent. Each individual space therefore offers a particular spectrum of experience and action that is possible within it.

"Building Space" demonstrates how various acoustic, audio-visual and conceptual spaces take shape. Besides a playful approach to material realities and their simulation on the virtual plane, "Building Space" is particularly concerned to develop imaginative audio-spaces and social spaces for interaction that consciously promote participation, as well as political spaces that integrate different cultural impulses, with all the inherent conflict this may imply.

Sawai creates new forms of perception using state-of-the-art technology while the Burial Chamber Trio aims primarily to demonstrate the imaginative and physical power of sound. The international SHARE community is simultaneously a technological, social and political entity, endeavoring to transgress technological, personal, and cultural borders. A joint project from Budapest's Ultrahang Festival and DISK/ CTM, The Blind Spot is motivated by current political realities - namely, the affiliation of recently admitted and more established EU-member countries - and seeks to open up practical

ways for Hungarian and German music protagonists to share their insight and agendas. The program Crossings, that brings together musicians from the Middle East and from west Europe and America, creates room for controversy, but also for exchange and understanding - at a time when relations are fraught with mutual paranoia. These and other projects and artists within the program of CTM.07 dare to construct new rooms of perception, experiment and agency.

Space is nowadays more than ever recognized as a composite parameter of musical production: Human audio capacities are spatial. Sound is immersive. Sound occurs in space that is itself used as an acoustic factor, but that is also itself transformed by sound. Sound evokes spatial associations in the listener. Space/sound-relations most of the time comprise audio and visual elements. Moreover, they are an integral element of a certain atmosphere that arises from the interplay of sound, architecture, light, design and moving images, and that is, not least, shaped by the people present within it: their perception of events, their on-going feedback and multiple communications are fundamental to the overall product. The subject implied within the term "Building Space" therefore not necessarily refers to the artist(s) but rather, to the collective expression of all those present in any one moment, be these artists, guests, organizers or the bar and door staff: individual impulses and reactions shape "the space" in its totality.

By focusing more strongly on the listener/recipient in his/her role as active participant, "Building Space" consciously takes the next step in the theme-sequence of previous CTM festival editions, which often took the producers' perspective as a starting point. The theme, "Performing Sound" in 2004 explored ways in which performers present themselves, and the role of the body in the field of electronic music. In 2005, the program focus, "Splendid Isolation" investigated the importance of the context in which respective sounds are produced, while in 2006, "Being Bold!" took a closer look at contemporary musicians' individual attitudes and motivation.

The festival's thematic focus and program not only reflect our personal interests as curators however, but are also a symbol of the position we find ourselves in as organizers of the festival. "Being Bold!" was a an avowal, a reaction to the economic and political constraints the festival had to face in 2005 and 2006 - and actually has to face again this year. "Building Space" is a signal of a new attitude, a slogan that expresses our firm resolve to not only maintain this festival but also to expand it. To this end we have scheduled two events, the E.C.A.S. assembly and the Professional Meeting at CTM.07, at which festival curators and cultural organizers will be able to discuss potential cooperation - on economic, organizational and artistic levels. Consciously building networks between international initiatives and institutions we will - under the roof of recently founded DISK - Sound & Image Initiative e.V - continue to create rooms for artists and recipients to experiment with new ideas and perspectives, in order to cast critical light on social developments and engage in the shaping of them.