Sonic Acts – The Dark Universe

Festival
for explo—
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in art,
music &
science
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2013
guide
the dark EXhibition
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introduction
the dark universe
Sonic Acts & NASA present
The Dark Universe
exhibition
The Dark Universe is the unknown universe, the universe
that remains mysterious. The Dark Universe is also the
weird, dark universe that draws us in and enfolds us in
its shroud, blacker than burned black. Seekers of the
unknown and the undiscovered must be able to imagine
the impossible. In science the quest to understand the
unknown generates extraordinary photographs and
visualisations, such as the images taken by the Hubble
Space telescope and the Dark Energy Camera. Science
constantly develops new tools and approaches to see
even further back in space and time, back to the Big
Bang, the traces of which linger in cosmic background
radiation, and deeper into matter itself, with the discovery
of the Higgs-boson last year in the Large Hadron Collider.
Artists and scientists observe, conduct experiments, and
collect data. They devise hypotheses, analyse, visualise
and sonify data, and develop models, all in the hope of
gaining insights into the universe. Where science uses
technology to reveal what lies beyond the scope of
our perceptions, The Dark Universe exhibition displays
works that use light and sound to seduce and confuse
the senses, works that explore the boundaries of our
perception.
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EXhibition
The exhibition runs from 13 January to 24 February
and is open daily between 12:00 and 22:00.
The Sonic Acts festival – The Dark Universe takes
place from 21–24 February 2013 in Amsterdam.
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Space ?
opening
Space 6
the dark universe
HC Gilje
Revolver
(2013)
The Dark Universe
exhibition opens on 12
January at 21:00 hrs
with a live performance
programme organised
in collaboration with NASA
& Viral Radio.
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EXhibition
Formerly one half of the
experimental industrial
duo Yellow Swans, now solo,
Pete Swanson makes contemporary club music with a
deafening noise twist,
mixing raw improvised
electronics, synthesiser
blasts, and pounding
warehouse kicks.
Raime is one of the hottest
acts on the Blackest
Ever Black label. Their
post-techno with pitchdark ambient elements
has attracted a lot of
attention, especially
since their latest release
Quarter Turns Over A Living
Line in November 2012.
Cut
Hands
Lee
Gamble
Cut Hands is the latest
solo project of William
Bennett (ex-Whitehouse),
in abundant use is made
of intricate polyrhythm
sourced from African drum
patterns. Mystical and
bewildering.
Founding member of the
UK-based Cyrk collective,
Lee Gamble explores
the deconstruction and
reconstruction of form,
abstraction and digital
synthesis. His recent
EP Diversions 1994-1996
consists entirely of
samples from his collection
of jungle mix-tapes.
Photo HC Gilje.
Peter
Swanson RAime
Revolver is a new work by HC Gilje, commissioned
by Sonic Acts and developed for The Dark Universe
exhibition. It evolved from Gilje’s earlier light installation
7 Cirkler (2012). In Revolver animated coloured LEDs move
in circles at different speeds to create a blend of colours.
Meticulously adapted to the exhibition space, Revolver
uses not only the shadows cast by the circles of LEDs
but also those of the visitors in the space. The ephemeral
quality of the projected light transforms the physical
space through a complex play of light and shadow.
HC Gilje (NO) works with real-time environments, installations, live performance, set design and single channel
video. For the past five years he has focused on animated
light and shadows, projected light objects and projected
light spaces.
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EXhibition
opening
space 4
Matthew Biederman
Event Horizon
(2012)
Photo Matthew Biederman.
Semiconductor
Black Rain
(2009)
the dark universe
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Black Rain is sourced from images collected by the twin
satellite, the Heliospheric Imager of the NASA STEREO
mission. We see the Heliospheric Imager (HI) visual
data as it tracks interplanetary space for solar wind and
coronal mass ejections heading towards Earth. Working
with STEREO scientists, Semiconductor collected all the
HI image data to date, revealing the satellites’ journeys
from their initial orientation to their current tracing of the
Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Solar wind, coronal mass
ejections, planets, and comets orbiting the sun can be
seen against the background of stars and the Milky Way.
Semiconductor consists of Ruth Jarman (UK) and Joe
Gerhardt (UK). Their innovative moving-image works
explore the material nature of our world and how we
experience it, questioning our place in the physical
universe.
Event Horizon is a multichannel generative HD audio/
video installation that metaphorically explores the
‘event horizon’, a phenomenon at the edges of a black
hole, which traps light, meaning it cannot be observed
beyond the event horizon. In Event Horizon software
iterates through a basic generative system that uses
pure fields of Red, Blue, and Green, modulated, layered
and interspersed with black. This creates the ‘event
horizon’ state where viewers’ perception, coupled with
the technological horizon and the physical space of the
installation, creates a third image that only exists in the
viewer’s mind. This calls into question the idea of the
horizon, and the place where perception actually occurs.
Matthew Biederman (US) is an interdisciplinary artist
working across media and milieus, continents and
communities. His works explore perception, aesthetics,
data systems, media saturation and its politics.
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reading room
Space 2
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Seeing With Eyes Closed invites visitors to sit on
the floor in front of LED lights and close their eyes. They
are exposed to flashing light, which produces a quasihallucinatory visual experience of flowing images behind
their eyelids. Each person’s experience of it is different.
Some see black and white or coloured geometric pat
terns that swirl, jump or flow; others see aerial images of
the earth, cities, eyes, human figures, or horses. In Seeing
with Eyes Closed, the images created by the flickering
lights emphasise the unstable essence of the image.
Franke underscores that our experiences are singular,
unverifiable, and not representable.
Ivana Franke (HR) is a visual artist from Croatia who often
works with transparent materials and light. Her installations
probe the relation between appearance and materiality,
and question our sense of spatial dimensions.
Photo Matthijs Munnik.
Matthijs Munnik
Citadels: Lightscape V
(2012)
Photo © Ivana Franke.
Ivana Franke
Seeing with Eyes Closed
(2011)
the dark universe
As a window to a virtual world, Citadels: Lightscape V
visualises an abstract universe composed only of light
and sound that explores the borders of our sensory
hardware. While the eye tries to make sense of the
sensory overload, a dazzling display of highly detailed
patterns and colour combinations is formed in the retina
and fed to the brain: the curious phenomena you see are
created by the eye itself, induced by the flickering lights.
The effect is impossible to capture on video or in text;
it can only be experienced in real life.
Matthijs Munnik (NL) is a new media artist whose performances and installations play with visitors’ perceptions.
He researches all kinds of colour combinations, patterns,
and rhythms to create spectacular visual effects.
Citadels: Lightscape V is co-produced by Sonic Acts
& Kontraste.
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Space 3
studio
Supernova (Cassiopeia A) is an installation made out
of smoke, light and sound. It portrays a supernova: the
explosion of a star and the birth of matter, creating a
burst of radiation that often outshines an entire galaxy.
Supernova (Cassiopeia A) recreates this astrophysical
phenomenon on a human scale. Developed in collaboration with Fabio Acero, Ph.D. in Astrophysics; Laurent
Dailleau composed the music.
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Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves (FR) is an artist who works with
new technologies, scenography and sculpture to create
a contemporary form of kinetic art. Her installations
incorporate luminous colours and video-projections.
Photo © Ed Jansen.
Yolanda Uriz Elizalde
~~Kulunka~~
(2012)
Photo © BIAN Montréal – Elektra, exhibition
Out of the Blue into the Black 2012.
Félicie d'Estienne d'Orves
Supernova (Cassiopeia A)
(2012)
the dark universe
~~Kulunka~~ is an immersive installation that evokes visual
and tactile ways of perceiving vibrations. Low frequencies
beyond our range of hearing are transmitted to water in a
glass container, creating patterns of waves. The morphing
geometries are illuminated by strobing, high-powered
LEDs and projected on the surrounding space. Tactile
transducers beneath the platform provided for visitors
wishing to lie down allow them to ‘hear’ with their
bodies, evoking a peculiar sensation of gravity and
– at times – the loss of it. Visitors are submerged in a
tactile sonic experience and enter a universe of sound
and light in which the boundaries between imagination
and reality blur in an amalgamation of the senses.
Yolanda Uriz Elizalde (ES/NL) studied music and recently
completed her MA at ArtScience, The Hague. Her work
ranges from experimental music to installations.
~~Kulunka~~ is co-produced by Sonic Acts & Kontraste.
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Space 1
bookshop & outdoors
Justin Bennett
Spectral Analysis WG
(2013)
Photo © Jürgen Reble.
Jürgen Reble
Materia Obscura
(2009)
Jürgen Reble’s Materia Obscura opens a door to an
unknown world. By manipulating film footage with
chemicals, Reble creates so called ‘chemographs’. He
then digitised these chemographs. This way a film arises
about the transformation of the film material itself. The
result is a visual expedition into the crystallised salts and
dyes of these films, revealing alchemical landscapes
and bizarre and strange worlds.
The works of film alchemist Jürgen Reble (DE) are often
rooted in the manual processing of film footage using
mechanical and chemical agents, and in the modification
of cinematographic apparatus.
the dark universe
Invisible lines
of force at the
wg terrain
In 1635 a plague-house was built on what is now the WG
terrain in Amsterdam. There was a hospital on this site
until 1983. Dr. Ernst Hartmann (1915-1992) observed that
some areas of a hospital were more conducive to healing
than others. He determined that a grid of radiation covers
the earth’s surface. At some points, these lines form a
‘Hartmann Knot’ of negative energy. Hartmann’s work has
been related to the study of Ley Lines and Feng Shui,
but also to the Orgone energy of Wilhelm Reich. Justin
Bennett’s soundwalk attempts to reveal this and other
energetic phenomena in and around the WG Terrain
while investigating the healing properties of sound and
electricity. We listen back into history – perhaps back
to the days of the plague-house, the curing sessions of
Anton Mesmer or the Second World War, listening to the
electromagnetic traces in the spaces around us.
Justin Bennett (UK/NL) works with sound and visual
media. His work painstakingly examines the sounds of
our everyday urban environments in the minutest detail.
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Materia Obscura is screened daily from 12:00–19:00.
Headphones and a map for the walk are distributed
at the NASA desk upon presentation of a photo ID.
Spectral Analysis WG is co-produced by Sonic Acts
& Kontraste and supported by soundtrackcity.
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cinema 2
Information
Colophon
NASA
(fka SMART Project Space)
Arie Biemondstraat 105–113,
1054 PD Amsterdam
+31 (0)20 4275951
www.nasahq.net
www.sonicacts.com
The exhibition The Dark
Universe is curated and
produced by Sonic Acts in
collaboration with NASA.
Festival
The Sonic Acts festival –
The Dark Universe takes
place from 21–24 February
2013 in Amsterdam. With a
conference, master classes,
live performances and
films. For a full programme
and tickets:
www.sonicacts.com
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Pre-festival events
On three consecutive
Wednesdays there is a
guided tour at NASA at
19:30, followed by an
artist talk and a film.
23 January: Yolanda Uriz
30 January: Matthijs Munnik
06 February: Justin Bennett
Sonic Acts – The Dark
Universe is curated,
compiled and produced by
Arie Altena, Nicky Assmann,
Martijn van Boven, Gideon
Kiers, Lucas van der Velden
and Annette Wolfsberger.
The Dark Universe is
produced in association
with NASA, Paradiso,
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam,
STEIM, Muziekgebouw aan 't
IJ & EYE Film Institute.
Graphic design by Bitcaves
(Femke Herregraven &
Nina Støttrup Larsen)
Sonic Acts is
supported by
This communication reflects the views only of
the author, and the European Commission cannot
be held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.
the dark universe
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