CTM 2015 – Un Tune

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The 16th edition of CTM took place from 23 January – 1 February 2015 in various Berlin venues including HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, Berghain, YAAM, West Germany, and Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien.

CTM 2015 - Un Tune attempted to engage with the direct bodily effects of frequencies, sound, and music as well as with their synergistic effects with other sensory stimuli. Artistic experimentation with the affective and somatic effects of sounds and frequencies opens up possibilities of tuning and de-tuning the composite that interconnects body, matter, energy, and (musical) machines - and of exploring our perception. Un Tune also served as an overarching metaphor that refered to the potentials that might be unlocked by temporarily destabilizing our habitual and consensual states.

The 10-day CTM 2015 festival thus shifted the focus from questions of music’s symbolic and cultural significance to questions of the use and functionality of sound and music as affective forces. Somewhere in between physics and cultural semantics, the theme moved from asking »what does music attempt to portray?« to »what effects do sound and frequencies have upon us?«.

Over 230 artists and professionals from 25 different countries contributed to over 150 performances and projects that made up the CTM 2015 programme, which also included a 8-day Transfer programme that encompassed the Discourse series of artist talks and film screenings, a collaborative MusicMaker’s Hacklab for music technology, contributions from Universities via performances and an Education Networking Day, two installations, and the Un Tune exhibition. The 16th edition featured several premieres of commissioned works supported through the CTM 2015 Radio Lab.

As always, the CTM festival was held in parallel to and in collaboration with transmediale – festival for art and digital culture which took place at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Beginning early January and running into both festivals, CTM and transmediale also hosted the P2P Vorspiel initiative together with over 30 local venues and organisations.

»Berlin’s most cutting-edge, multidisciplinary festival.«
→ DJ broadcast

»Die CTM brachte bereichernde tage für die ansonsten eher monotone Berliner Clubkultur.«
→ Missy Magazine

»Founded back in 1999, this remorselessly avant-garde audio-visual celebration has become a pillar of the Berlin musical calendar, attended by thousands of devout fans each year. With a booking policy that pulls close to zero punches in terms of pandering to mainstream appeal, this is very much an event for those seeking to push the sonic envelope through as many experimental letterboxes as possible.«
→ Crack Magazine, Alex Gwilliam

»CTM is more than a festival—it's a frothing petri dish of musical ideas, in equal measure entertaining and enlightening, for the artists as well as the audience.«
→ Resident Advisor

»Sound verzerrt, hallt, bricht, um vorgefasste Meinungen zu zerplittern und uns aufzustören aus dem allzuschnellen Einverständnis mit dem, was uns von der Bühne herunter packt. Nichts ist wahr, alles ist erlaubt - diese Haltung verbindet die Klangartisten verbindet, die sich beim diesjährigen Club-Transmediale-Festival vor einem enthusiastischen Publikum den Kopf am Laptop oder sonstwas aufschlugen.«
→ Tagesspiegel, Volker Lücke

»CTM and Berghain show once again that Britain is rather lacking compared to our continental European brothers and sisters.«
→ The Quietus, Luke Turner

»Tatsächlich öffnete sich eine weite genderschere im Verlauf des CtM Festivals, das 2015 in seiner Kuration viel wert auf die quantitative gleichberechtigung der geschlechter legte und damit, verglichen mit den vor einiger Zeit durch das netzwerk female:pressure vorgelegten Zahlen zur unterrpräsentation weiblicher Künstlerinnen auf Festivals, seiner Vorbildfunktion gerecht wurde: Die auf dem Festival vertretenen Männer drangen auf ihr publikum ein, die Frauen öffneten sich nach außen, suchten die Konfrontation. Das von testosteron dominierte nerd-Kontinuum kriegt seinen Knacks ab. Das ist auch mehr als überfällig.«
→ SPEX, Kristoffer Cornils

»In any case, this year FELT pretty good.«
→ Secret thirteen, Zuzana Frida Prikrylová