SONiC iSLAND

In the organizer's words:

Hidden in the endless blue, where no map leads, lies an archipelago where art, music and science meet and can be experienced. On Sonic Island, we explore self-built instruments, algorithms and technologies while dancing around palm trees made of cyber scrap that glow in the neon light.

For this edition, we are looking forward to concerts by Vinyl-terror & -horror and The Uncontrolled Manifold. The Nuklear Nektar Bar will provide refreshing drinks.

Vinyl-terror & -horror
The artist duo Vinyl-terror & -horror, consisting of Camilla Sørensen (1978) and Greta Christensen (1977), works at the interface of sound and visual art. The duo is known for their captivating turntable concerts and immersive, humorous, post-apocalyptic sound installations. Characteristic of their turntable performances and their compositional work in general is that the duo approaches the medium of vinyl from a sculptural perspective, using the turntable itself and the vinyl material as compositional devices that lead to unexpected results. Vinyl-terror & -horror use manipulated records, including broken, baked, collaged "cut-ups" on multi-pickup turntables, blending a wide range of culturally diverse musical genres in a non-hierarchical mix to create an abstract cinematic sound story.

The Uncontrolled Manifold
Dancing with sympoetic machines
The Uncontrolled Manifold works with electronics and machines that possess autonomy and stubbornness. These machines are brought into interaction with each other, creating danceable polyrhythms and at the same time a fascinating shadow play, as the machines are mounted on an overhead projector and their interaction is projected. Analogue oscillators generate self-organizing coordination dynamics and organic patterns: the performance makes the utopian potential of analogue communication tangible.

The Uncontrolled Manifold is the current performance project by Christian Faubel, who researches and works as an interdisciplinary scientist and artist. Christian Faubel holds a doctorate in electrical engineering and researched autonomous systems at the interface of robotics, neuroscience and psychology at the Institute of Neuroinformatics from 2002-2012. From 2012 to 2018, he was a lecturer at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in the field of experimental computer science. Since 2020, he has been Professor of Smart Connected Products in the Code & Context course at TH Köln.

NuclearNectar
mobile laboratory kitchen by the RaumZeitPiraten & Kara Handgraaf
The walk-in, expansive installation invites you to linger between peculiar elixirs that are offered for drinking. A self-generating soundscape wafts through the space, mixing with drops of an unknown essence, the scraping of a stirring rod in a viscous substance, the bubbling of liquids in glass flasks and stills. It unfolds its mind-shifting effect in the auditory canals, while unusual ingredients are mixed together in confused combinations in this laboratory kitchen. An attempt at a substantial time-out of visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli.