CTM 2021 – Second Programme Announcement

Festivals are as much about art and music as they are about exchange and togetherness.  As the pandemic changes our means and understanding of connection, CTM 2021 »Transformation« aims to respond to some of the challenges facing arts and culture in these exceptional times. By experimenting with formats and expanding into an online setting, CTM seeks to adapt while preserving important forms of continuity – encouraging connections, supporting ongoing artistic work, and engaging in crucial dialogues. How might music communities find ways to transform towards new, more supportive contexts and equitable existences? Streamed performances and special commissions, an immersive exhibition, interactive experiments in virtuality, a hackathon, and discursive events structure our 22nd edition. We invite you to join us in this experimental approach to enjoying music and art together remotely but collectively. While we can't physically congregate in Berlin, the good news is that anyone with an internet connection can take part at CTM 2021. We hope that opening our digital doors allows for more distributed access that can only strengthen our sense of community. Let's chart the unknown and find togetherness in transformation.

So, where shall we meet, if not in person? CTM Cyberia is a virtual environment, an experimental playground, and online exhibition hall – all in multiplayer mode. Created by CTM in cooperation with the indie gaming festival A Maze., with a visual design by Lucas Gutierrez and with sound by Elvin Brandhi, this distorted fantasyland lets attendees select an avatar, encounter friends and strangers, watch livestreams together, chat, and stumble through portals that lead to artworks by artists from around the world, most of which are commissioned pieces receiving their premiere. Contributions span from artistic analyses of how we shape technology – and how it shapes us – by Mouse on Mars with Louis Chude-Sokei or Byrke Lou, to a joyful exercise in destabilising anthropocentric constructs as role-played by Radio Lab winners Omsk Social Club x Portals Cashmere Radio x Alexander Iezzi, passing through a sonic Southeast Asian futurist narrative by Gabber Modus Operandi x Rimbawan Gerilya x Siko Setyano, and on to personal aesthetic journeys of Sote and Tarik Barri or Florence To.

Long in the works, Khyam Allami's »Apotome« will be unveiled during CTM 2021. This web-based software environment was developed in collaboration with creative studio Counterpoint. Apotome was created as a tool to help counter the cultural asymmetry embedded in modern music-making tools, which share a bias inherited from Western music theory and culture. With this technological experiment in progress, the artists point towards more liberated, creative, inclusive, and culturally balanced music-making processes. Apotome will be showcased at CTM 2021 in various ways. Launched with the festival, the Apotome website will feature a generative audiovisual stream running 24/7. The initial audio is cued by inputs from Allami, while visuals are generated from the audio. Limited time slots will also be available to anyone wanting to play with Apotome themselves, changing its parameters and inputting their own musical ideas to trigger new directions in the generative audio stream; registration will be available via the Apotome website. The website output will also be streamed into CTM Cyberia, allowing visitors to discover the sound and visuals mapped into one of Cyberia’s virtual rooms. Within CTM 2021’s streaming programme are commissioned works by Deena Abdelwahed, Slikback, and Wahono, who each connect Apotome to their own studio setup to present their own artistic vision. Another unique live streamed event sees the premiere of works by Allami and composer Faten Kanaan, who joins in from New York. MIDI signals from the composers via Apotome will be sent individually to synth musicians Enyang Ha, Nene H, Tot Onyx, and Tyler Friedman, who in turn modulate the compositions’ timbre, sounds, and other parameters in a shared live composing process. Cellist Lucy Railton contributes an additional layer of live improvisation.

Following our first collaboration with Club Matryoshka in August 2020, »Project Hyphae« is a virtual club night set in a specially conceived Minecraft world on the brink of collapse. Virtual clubbers are invited to help fulfill the Project Hyphae mission via a gameplay narrative created by Club Matryoshka together with art collective Children of Cyberspace. The experience is soundtracked by geographically separated DJs and producers – from Mary Anne Hobbs in London and rRoxymore in Berlin, to ZULI in Cairo and Sonia Calico in Taipei – who appear on two dancefloors to propel the hyphae sci-fi rave. Club Matryoshka will offer a preview of Project Hyphae on 17 January 2021 via their Twitch channel, where the main event will also be livestreamed during the festival (for those who merely want to watch and listen from the outside).

In October 2020, CTM teamed up with Morphine, the label run by Rabih Beaini, for a 17-hour livestream to benefit the Lebanese Musicians' Fund, particularly those impacted by the fatal explosion in Beirut last summer. In cooperation with several of the city's music initiatives – such as Frequent Defect, Irtijal, and Ruptured Records – the fundraiser rounded up a variety of Lebanese and international acts. We’re pleased to restream a selection of Morphine x Beirut highlights at CTM 2021 from synthesised sound sculptors to fiery improvisors and singer-songwriters: Abed Kobeissy, Aya Metwalli & CALAMITA, Fadi Tabbal, Jad Atoui, Marta de Pascalis, NÂR with Akram Hajj, and Senyawa.

Also as fanfare to CTM 2021, the Hacklab Input talks will take place online on 14 & 15 January 2021 with speakers Jamie Fenton and Ava Ansari, setting the scene for »Off the Fovea,« a collective artistic experiment by the MusicMakers Hacklab, led by Olivia Jack and Peter Kirn. Ten selected Hacklab Fellows, spanning different disciplines and time zones, will collaborate remotely to forge new ideas of how to create together even when geographically separated. The unforeseeable result – which could conceivably combine anything from live coding to puppetry to VR – will then be presented via livestream on 31 January 2021.

Finally, we're debuting a wearable collaboration with Transe Paris, the clothing and accessory line by Gu Song An. The designer's hybrid aesthetic balances his Shanghai background with a French touch, and for CTM 2021, he has used our recognizable Liminial motif – designed by VOJD for CTM Festival – to create all-over prints on various sleek pieces. Select items such as tops and undergarments are available now, with more items to come in 2021.

Meanwhile, the open call for a series of speculative workshops titled Rethinking Music Ecosystems continues now through 18 December 2020. Hosted by artists and thinkers DeForrest Brown, Jr., Jay and Jack Jordan, Michelle Lhooq, and Taeyoon Choi, each session hones in on a specific topic affecting our music communities, aiming to identify potential approaches and tools to challenge problematic practices and models. The workshops take place before the festival from 14–18 January 2021.

The full programme for CTM 2021 Transformation – including more special projects, commissioned works, and our discourse programme – will be announced in January.

Confirmed artists so far: