BERLIN - Transsonic in Berlin

 Dear friends and colleagues at DEGEM,

If you happen to be in Berlin next week, you are cordially invited to Transsonic's new project "Sonic Lightning", on October 11-12 in Tanzhalle Wiesenburg, Wedding, Berlin.

Transsonic, Nicola L. Hein and Viola Yip, is an experimental transmedial duo that creates immersive site-specific performances and installations bridging the vibrations of light and sound. Having a musical background, they look into the ontology of sound and how musical experience can be transformed beyond its common material—sound. For their artistic research project, Transsonic explore light as an expanded musical material. They research and create performances, improvising between lights and sounds as equally important but dialectical musical materials.

Transsonic has been commissioned by Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Seanaps Festival Leipzig and Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago. They have also presented at New York University, Experimental Intermedia (NYC), Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Sonic Lab in SARC at Queen's University Belfast, University of Huddersfield, Oxford University, NIME conference, Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, Klex Festival in Kuala Lumpur, De Tanker in Amsterdam, Gare du Nord in Basel, Classical Beat Festival in Travemünde, Blurred Edges Festival in Hamburg, Alte Feuerwache in Köln, A L'arme Festival and Experimentik in Berlin.

In this new project "Sonic Lightning", Transsonic wants to further develop a new concept and approach to their intermedial performances. They focus on the use of laser feedback instruments, using lasers as sound sources and solar panel microphones, combining them with light bulb instruments, fog machines and synthesizers, as well as machine learning based latent timbre spaces. Transsonic will expand its artistic dimensions and develop a new kind of electronic instrument by using solar panel microphones and laser sound sources, creating a unique audiovisual experience. In particular, the aim is to explore and define new concepts of the instrumentality of light as the starting point and origin of sound, integrating the entire body.

If you want to have a sneak peak, here is a very short video from our test run at NIME conference in Utrecht. 

This project is made possible with the support of Initiative Neue Musik (INM) Berlin e.V.

Thanks for reading! We hope to see some of you there! 

all the best, 

Viola Yip and Nicola L. Hein