If you’ve been to Norbergfestival, you’ll be aware that it’s probably Sweden’s most cutting-edge festival, a place where club culture, avant-garde electronic music and performance and digital art live and breathe together. Anrikningsverket is the non-profit culture organisation that runs the festival, and they’re bringing their curatorial talent and vision to Moderna Museet for three events this August. Resonans is their new event, a music and art exploration that includes artist talks, DJs, live electronic music and more. Booked in for the August editions are artists including Lea Martini and Ofelia Jarl Ortega, electronic musicians including FLORA and Lyra Pramuk and DJs including KABLAM and more. We spoke to Anrikningsverket’s Frida Sandström for more information.
This is the first year you’ve started with the Resonans concept. Where did the idea for these events come from?
Resonans came from a discussion between Anrikningsverket, MDT and Moderna Museet/ArkDes, to present electronic and experimental music and performance in the garden of the two museums, making clear the link between visual arts, music and choreography. The word ‘resonans’ refers to the resonance in both mediums (sound, lights, physical movements) and in the social matter that the artworks engage with. The question of resonance is central for all live performances, independent of what disciplinary background that the artist might have.
What is the format for the events? It’s artist talks and live sets interspersed with DJ sets right?
Each night is introduced by an artist talk, followed by two to three live sets and live performances. The DJ of the night presents a set interspersed throughout the night.
Talk us through the line-ups for each of the evenings. How much time went into the curation of these events and what balance were you trying to find with the line-ups? What qualities did these artists, DJs and musicians have that made them suitable for Resonans?
The line-up is curated by Anrikningsverket, who always strive to present artists who engage with the question of resonance and who push the limits of their own medial and disciplinary position. In the intersection between live sets, choreography and multimedia installation, we want to introduce a group of artists who bridge the minimal and experimental DIY-scene and the heavier art and performance institutions. What is shared between the two contexts is the artistic research into the boundaries of the very practice, presentation and reception of each artform. We focus not only inviting a local group of artists, but rather to introduce those whom might be well established in a larger European context for electronic music and performance, but whom rarely are given space in larger contexts in Sweden, outside of the context of Norbergfestival, Intonal, Audiorama, etc.
What are some of the topics you’ll be discussing in the artist discussions?
The artist talks will be informed with the questions above. Instead of focusing on the artists’ CVs, the talk will dive into their work, presented at Resonans and elsewhere. What questions and methods have informed these works, and what references are important for the artist? What role does resonance play, in this context? What does the presence of live bodies make today, and how do they deal with this question in their artistic practices? The artists of Resonance engage with practices when media transfer is corrupted through embodiment. Be it through the performance of a sound, the transfer of lights or the reconfiguration of movement or space. When and how does transformation happen, and when is transformation/conversion/corruption needed?
Are electronic music and multimedia and performing art naturally compatible artforms, in your view? And do you see combining them in events like this as kind of a path for where art can develop in future?
This question is responded to above. What connects the fields is the live performance/presentation. The history of aesthetics and certainly aesthetic autonomy (meaning the artwork’s independence beyond marked and desires of humankind) does also make clear that the live performance is the most precarious and aesthetically engaging, medially transforming of all artforms. Where does it take place, and when? Who is the artist, what is the actual work? Those questions are activated in each live set, each performance of bodily matter, sound and multimedia. I am not sure that the disciplines need to be separated according to the logic of institutions that rely on logic that has aged a few hundred years. What is important is that each practice is given the space it needs to work. A dancer might need a shower, a musician needs more amplifiers or a space with larger acoustics – to make it simple. But, these needs are also dispersed between disciplines, just like the artistic outcome is. Perhaps those who need education and knowledge are the producers, the curators and the art critics. Those who are in charge of funding and discourse and therefore responsible for the spaces in which artists engage. What is needed is a skilled crew whom, with various artistic backgrounds, can support the artwork in question. As a curator and writer myself, I lean on my own background in artistic practice, and what I learn from my artist colleagues. Thus, logics need to be inverted, so that the practice is before the production, so that present artists run the space, and not the opposite. In this way, formats and methods will develop beyond economic and institutional restrictions. But with high knowledge of the material and technical need for each practice present. The fact that Anrikningsverket mainly focus on music is important to underline, but through the introduction of neighbouring artforms we show their relations. This is also a response to the international and commercial ”art world”, where practitioners of dance and music are alienated from their needs and works when presented in the context of ”fine arts”. Claiming the need of the experience and knowledge present in musical contexts, this logics is reconfigured.
In the meeting between the artists in Resonans, it is easily seen that they engage with similar problems in and throughout the live space. A general question is also the audience, and its role and responsibility. The audience is always included in the medial and social matter of the space, which the artist transforms, in one way or the other. Through the collaboration between institutions and organisations who give space for artists who, in different ways, engage with these matters, Resonans shows the fact that choreography needs sound, sound needs light and light needs movement. Between Anrikningsverket, MDT, Moderna Museet and ArkDes (and with an essential support from Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), a possible pathway is presented.
Do you think that Stockholm has been lacking these kind of events, where electronic music and art interact in an innovative and fresh way?
This is a question of cultural politics. As a small, non-profit organisation, Anrikningsverket is only given funding for specific projects, and organisational support for one year at the time. The situation is almost the same for small konsthalls and platforms such as MDT, EMS, etc. As for the larger institutions, such as Moderna Museet and ArkDes, the funding is highly restricted to certain aims, as it should be in a state-funded institution. There is obviously a gap in between the two. Without longterm support outside of the heavy institutions, only short projects will happen, people will work underpaid or for free, artworks will be weakly supported and slowly adapt to the precarious contexts given. To enable a longstanding development of artistic intersections, development of methods and formats, a material ground needs to be established first. I don’t believe in innovation and nor in freshness, but in a close conversation with the artists engaging in the formats proposed and produced. For Resonance, we enable residencies at MDT and EMS, where the artists can further develop their works in a local context for its forthcoming presentation. Be it a longterm stay, a longer conversation or a longer funding, the possibility for durational collaborations, between artists and promoters, platforms and individual workers are needed. And most certainly, we are in need of more physical spaces where this can happen. From studios to scenes: without the physical space, the resonate goes all virtual. Which is also interesting, for sure. But bodies need air and that’s our main focus here.
What kind of experiences do you hope people will have at these events?
I hope that they will see that in contemporary performance, installation and concerts, production and presentation are intertwined. The artist’s presence in the work demands the presence of an audience. It is through the encounter with this that the work becomes ‘live’. I hope that anyone who attends Resonans will experience that attention and receptiveness marks a shared experience – resonance in a broader understanding of the word.
Finally, after the Resonans nights, what has Anrikningsverket planned for the rest of the year?
We are currently planning the next Norbergfestival, which will be the 20th edition, next summer.
Renonans, Aug 17 – 31, Moderna Museet
#1, Aug 17. Lea Martini, KABLAM, Lyra Pramuk, N.M.O.
#2, Aug 24, Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Sonja Tofik, Hans Berg, Gábor Lázár
#3, Aug 31, Kara-Lis Coverdale, rip ME, FLORA
Lead Photo: Peo Bengtsson
