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+.. title: Mikromusik 2015
+.. date: 2015-10-20 16:00
+.. modified: 2015-10-20 16:00 UTC+02:00
+.. tags: daad, gustavo alfaix, micromusik, berlin, dreaming smetak, berliner künstlerprogramm, villa elisabeth, elisabethkirche, sophienkirche, walter smetak, electronic studio, tu-berlin, daad, a-trio, aamm
+.. category: events
+.. slug: mikromusik-2015
+.. summary: Information regarding "How to build large audio installations in just a short amount of time." and "How did we manage to run this festival with so few people?"
+.. authors: David Runge
+
+| The |daad| sponsors a yearly |neue_musik| and |experimental_music| festival in Berlin, called |mikromusik|. It's usually spread over several locations in Berlin. 
+| This year those included |villa_elisabeth|, |elisabeth_kirche|, |sophien_kirche| [#]_ and |kapelle_der_versoehnung|, with |mikromusik_flyer|.
+|
+| The |electronic_studio| at |tu-berlin|, where I'm currently working/ tutoring is the partner for all things technical for these venues during this event and puts my collegue and I in the position of helping to realize different artistic setups.
+| While some of the installations and concerts are based on multi-channel/ spatialized audio (and thus sometimes have a complex speaker setup), others require many more tweaks and additional work, before they are ready to go.
+| One of those was |dreaming_smetak| by Gustavo Alfaix.
+|
+| His installation was supposed to use 36 acoustic guitars in a aeolian setup, meaning they are to be played by the wind!
+| This is the kind of thing your momma warns you about!
+| No seriously, if you ever find yourself working on a large-scale technical setup, involving many acoustic guitars, that have to be amplified, plan ahead accordingly.
+| Gustavo's installation space was the attic and spire of |sophien_kirche|, which further complicated the whole story due to long cable lines (we ended up making a couple of hundred meters of custom cables).
+| We got ready just in time for the opening.
+| The resulting |dreaming_smetak_audio| however was very mystic and dreamy sound wise (just as the name suggests).
+| You can find a |dreaming_smetak_pictures| (some by me) and a |dreaming_smetak_video|, that further explain the whole thing.
+| File under: Worth it!
+|
+| This was not my only involvement with the festival, though.
+| During setting up |dreaming_smetak|, Gustavo and I could listen already to the rehearsals of the in-house choir (not too bad actually!) and of |quatuor_diotima| (an excellent string quartett) below us in the nave, which I would record later on.
+| The |electronic_studio| also dealt with the setup of Karen Powers' installation/ performance piece |once_below| at |kapelle_der_versoehnung|, which proved to be demanding from a gear point of view.
+| The chapel is semi-open to the outside, consisting of wooden bars, marking an oval space (much like a wooden prison... weird concept for a chapel, right?), enclosing a concrete building (also ovally shaped).
+| This plus rain is pretty much speaker apocalypse and makes you get all paranoid about those Meyer UPL-1.
+| Although I didn't hear much of Karen's piece, I dealt with the technical setup of another installation/ performance of hers earlier this year.
+| She is a nice person to work with, collecting sound scapes from all over the world, that she turns into pieces.
+| Another interesting place of involvement for us was the |elisabeth_kirche|, a bombed out church in Berlin-Mitte, that has seen only mild renovations to now house concerts, perfomances and installations.
+| There, we dealt with the gentlemen John Tilbury and Eddie Prévost of AMM and Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui and Raed Yassin of A-Trio (both alone and in combination: |amm_a_trio_aamm|), alongside Boris Filanovsky and Arno Fabre showcasing |componiums_la_machine_fleuve|.
+| The first two needed a classical concert setup, in which we took care of the sometimes very dynamic output and a recording for |deutschlandradio_kultur|, the latter, as a performance piece, based upon a cyclist-driven multitude of music boxes, needed some fine tuning for the piezos in use.
+|
+| Closing, there was the pretty exhaustive tear-down and another concert (we nearly could ''just be part of''): |audiovisual_concert| by Kerbaj and others, showing steep similarities to seeing some first generation Postrock, like GY!BE live.
+| In respective, I'm still astounded by how much has been accomplished by so few people. 
+| Although obviously planning of such events can always be better, much can still be pushed towards a good direction by applying some hard work!
+
+.. |dreaming_smetak_video| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://vimeo.com/140917422" target="_blank">video documentation</a>
+
+.. |dreaming_smetak_pictures| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/137013791@N05/sets/72157659463917429/" target="_blank">series of pictures</a>
+
+.. |dreaming_smetak_audio| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://soundcloud.com/gustavo-alfaix/sets/dreaming-smetak-2015" target="_blank">audio</a>
+
+.. [#] The church interior would actually prove as great fun to every Illuminati fan.
+
+.. |daad| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/" target="_blank">Berliner Künstlerprogramm (DAAD)</a>
+
+.. |neue_musik| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_classical_music" target="_blank">"Neue Musik"</a>
+
+.. |experimental_music| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_music" target="_blank">experimental music</a>
+
+.. |mikromusik_flyer| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/pdf/2015_mikromusik_programmflyer.pdf" target="_blank">many different installations and concerts</a>
+
+.. |dreaming_smetak| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/de/veranstalt_detail.php?id=1825" target="_blank">"Dreaming Smetak"</a>
+
+.. |once_below| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/de/veranstalt_detail.php?id=1824" target="_blank">"Once Below"</a>
+
+.. |quatuor_diotima| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/de/veranstalt_detail.php?id=1826" target="_blank">Quatuor Diotima</a>
+
+.. |amm_a_trio_aamm| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/de/veranstalt_detail.php?id=1828" target="_blank">"AMM, A-Trio, AAMM"</a>
+
+.. |audiovisual_concert| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/de/veranstalt_detail.php?id=1831" target="_blank">"Audiovisual concert"</a>
+
+.. |componiums_la_machine_fleuve| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/de/veranstalt_detail.php?id=1827" target="_blank">"Componiums. La Machine Fleuve"</a>
+
+.. |mikromusik| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/de/veranstalt_detail.php?id=1823" target="_blank">Mikromusik</a>
+
+.. |deutschlandradio_kultur| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.deutschlandradiokultur.de/ursendung-mikromusik.1022.de.html?dram:article_id=324034" target="_blank">Deutschlandradio Kultur</a>
+
+.. |villa_elisabeth| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.elisabeth.berlin/" target="_blank">Villa Elisabeth</a>
+
+.. |elisabeth_kirche| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elisabeth_%28Berlin-Mitte%29" target="_blank">St. Elisabeth Kirche</a>
+
+.. |sophien_kirche| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophienkirche_%28Berlin%29" target="_blank">Sophienkirche</a>
+
+.. |kapelle_der_versoehnung| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapelle_der_Vers%C3%B6hnung" target="_blank">Kapelle der Versöhnung</a>
+
+.. |electronic_studio| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.ak.tu-berlin.de/studio" target="_blank">Electronic Studio</a>
+
+.. |tu-berlin| raw:: html
+
+  <a href="http://www.tu-berlin.de" target="_blank">TU Berlin</a>