The Creative Europe-supported SHAPE platform for innovative music and
audiovisual art is announcing its 2017 list of artists. The artist selection
for the platform’s third year traditionally places a diverse selection of
audiovisual projects and sound artists alongside musical acts that range from
post-grime and techno to free improvisation and experiments with field
recordings. The platform is run by a union of 16 European festivals, including
Insomnia, Maintenant, Unsound and CTM.
A 3-year initiative
co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the SHAPE
project reunites 16 European non-profit organizations active within the ICAS –
International Cities of Advanced Sound network to create a platform that aims
to support, promote, and exchange innovative and aspiring emergent musicians
and interdisciplinary artists with an interest in sound.
SHAPE stands for “Sound,
Heterogeneous Art and Performance in Europe”.
SHAPE annually chooses 48
musicians and artists to participate in a mix of live performances,
residencies, workshops and talks across member festivals and special events.
Each year, the curatorial teams of all 16 SHAPE
festivals and initiatives come together and choose 48 artists. The artist
roster has been created disregarding divisions of genre, age or popularity.
Rather, creative novelty and successful experimentation have served as core
values, with additional emphasis on the inclusion of upcoming and underexposed
artists as well as representing local scenes of involved festivals and art
centers.
The third year’s roster of SHAPE continues to demonstrate a kind of
eclecticism that is clearly an outcome of all the 16 diverse festivals
selecting artists and projects together – how else could one arrive at UK’s
instrumental grime producer Mr. Mitch
brushing shoulders with Dutch artist Mike
Rijnierse, who specializes in site-specific installations, or Lancastrian
free improvising virtuoso pianist Stephen
Grew sharing the stage with Toxe,
the Swedish highschooler, who, with her productions for Staycore and Rabit’s
Halcyon Veil, unexpectedly catapulted to the forefront of European experimental
dance music… A deliberate desire to detect streams of fresh ideas and
unexpected influences beyond genre categories has influenced the choices of
SHAPE’s curators.
Sound art, free improv or experimental dance music
are by far not the only genres, represented within this 48 artist list –
there’s the jazz-laden, warm modern minimalism of Polish clarinetist
Wacław
Zimpel, the lo-fi, ambient rap of Prague-based artist
Lišaj, the “audio
theater” of Lithuanian producer
J.G. Biberkopf that brings
together elements of abstract grime and musique concrete, the austere sonic
architecture of
Thomas Ankersmit or the ballads of
Norwegian folk and jazz singer
Mari Kvien Brunvoll, mostly built out
of her voice, recorded in loops and accompanied by kalimba, kazoo and zither.
Less explored musical scenes are
represented: the duo of beatmaker Oriole and video/performance
artist
Linda
Konone evokes the
collision of Riga’s advanced dance music and contemporary art scenes, while the
punk, techno and noise laden musical underground of Budapest is represented by
Céh and
Új Bála, two projects by Gábor Kovács or
the avant-garde metal
group
Entrópia
Architektúra, all
highly contrasted by the same city’s eerie singer-songwriter project
Unknown Child. The participation of
v4w.enko, an audiovisual project from Ukraine,
sees SHAPE exploring this country’s music scene for the first time.
As in
previous years, links to prestigious labels can be observed: producer Sky H1 released her debut EP last year
via Codes, sound artist and composer Anna
Zaradny published her critically acclaimed record “Go Go Theurgy” on
Poland’s mostly atonal Bocian records and the currently Paris-based boss of
L.I.E.S. Ron Morelli participates in
SHAPE with his live show, based on the largely beatless “A Gathering Together”
– his most recent full-length recording, published by Hospital Productions.
In
comparison to previous years, the 2017 artist list of SHAPE puts a larger
emphasis also on seeking out interesting DJs – ranging from Denmark’s
all-female DJ trio Apeiron Crew,
Romania’s Chlorys and Netherlands-based
Russian DJ Inga Mauer to Dynamons, the co-founder of Greek label
Echovolt Records, or Danny L Harle,
representing the kitsch-ridden internet label PC Music.
The audiovisual part of the roster
includes, among others, Aurelia 1+Hz,
a project that focuses on sonification of the movement data of a jellyfish, the
French collective CHDH, who create
audio and visual algorithmic synthesizers, Julien
Desprez with his electric guitar/light performance “Acapulco Redux”, Franck Vigroux with his various audiovisual
collaborations, and many others.
During
year 2, the platform organized 150 performances (an average of 3 performances
per artist) with a female performance ratio of 40% and male performance ratio
of 60%. The mobility of 86 artists was facilitated.
For SHAPE,
the third year formally starts in December, and the platform will kick it off
with its second large showcase beyond Europe – this time, as part of Rio de
Janeiro’s festival Novas Frequências
(December 3-8). The showcase will consist of 13 SHAPE acts including 2016
alumni Stine Janvin Motland and Gil Delindro, as well as several names
from the new roster, such sis_mic, Mr. Mitch, Toxe, Mike Rijnierse, Andreas Trobollowitsch and others.
Full list of SHAPE artists for 2017:
Alex Augier (FR)
Amnesia Scanner (FI/DE)
Andreas Trobollowitsch (AT)
Anna
Meredith (UK)
Anna
Zaradny (PL)
Apeiron
Crew (DK)
Battle-Ax
(AUS, AT)
Black
Zone Myth Chant (FR)
Boska
(NO)
Céh/Új
Bála (HU)
CHDH
(FR)
Chlorys (RO)
Christian Kroupa (SI)
Danny L Harle
(UK)
Elektrovolt
(NL)
Entrópia
Architektúra (HU)
Fraction
(FR)
Franck
Vigroux (FR)
Gabey Tjon
a Tham (NL)
Hiele (BE)
Ilias Pitsios aka Dynamons (GR)Inga Mauer (RUS/NL)
Jacques (FR)
JG Biberkopf (LT)
Julien Desprez (FR)
Lišaj (CZ)
Machine Woman (RU/DE)
Maoupa Mazzochetti (BE)
Mari Kvien Brunvoll (NO)
Matthias Härtig (DS-X.org) (DE)
Mike Rijnierse (NL)
Mr. Mitch (UK)
N.M.O. (ES/NO/DE)
Ninja Sword (FR)
Olivia (PL)
Oriole & Linda Konone (LV)
Robertina Šebjanič & Slavko
Glamočanin: Aurelia 1+Hz (SI)
Ron Morelli (US/FR)
Sis_Mic (FR)
SKY H1 (BE)
Stefan Fraunberger (AT)
Stephen Grew (UK)
Thomas Ankersmit (NL/DE)
TOXE (SE)
Unknown Child (HU)
v4w.enko (UA)
Varg (SE)
Wacław Zimpel (PL)
SHAPE member festivals
Biennale
Némo / ARCADI –
Paris, FR
CTM Festival / DISK e.V. – Berlin, DE
Cynetart Festival / TMA Hellerau e.V. – Dresden, DE
Festival
Maintenant /
Association Electroni[K] – Rennes, FR
Insomnia
Festival /
Association – Tromso, NO
Les
siestes électroniques / Association Rotation – Toulouse, FR
MeetFactory – Prague, CZ
MoTA
– Museum for Transitory Art – Ljubljana, SI
musikprotokoll
im steirischen herbst / ORF – Graz, AT
RIAM Festival / Technè – Marseilles, FR
Rokolectiv Festival / Association – Bucharest, RO
Schiev Festival – Brussels, BE
Skaņu
Mežs Festival /
Association – Riga, LV
TodaysArt Festival / The Generator Foundation – The
Hague, NL
UH Fest / Ultrasound Foundation – Budapest,
HU
Unsound Festival/ Fundacja Tone – Krakow, PL