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. Taking place during an intensified winter lockdown period, this 100% online edition is an attempt to experiment with new digital formats, see how we can continue to support ongoing artistic work, and find moments of interaction and togetherness as a remote music community and audience.
Our 22nd edition comprises two virtual club nights, each of which approach the challenges of filling the void of listening to music and partying together in different ways. A series of trans/local commissions task artists with envisioning new ways of creating and performing remotely, be this through new technological innovation, narrative solutions, or other explorations. A weelong Discourse programme engages with the »Transformation« theme in multiple ways. Multiple online apps and tools that allow engagement with artists and each other can be tested throughout the programme. Previously announced are the multiplayer CTM Cyberia virtual environment and online exhibition hall and the MusicMakers Hacklab where 10 selected fellows seek solutions to online collaboration throughout the festival week. 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.
Newly-Announced Programme Series and Concerts
The trans/local performance series features commissioned works that will be live streamed from the silent green Betonhalle venue. Each performance unites a Berlin-based artist with creators in other parts of the world, who explore ways of remote collaborative work and performance. New works are created by: Isabel Lewis and Loraine James; Mark Fell joining forces with the infamous guitarist and composer Jim O’Rourke, algorithmic musician Rian Treanor, punk electronics and vocal performer Petronn Sphene, and maverick sound improviser and instrument builder Limpe Fuchs; the melding of voice, bodies, electronics, and plastic waste as Born in Flamez and dancers Lilly Pfalzer and Ronald Berger connect with faceless Mexican performer Muxxxe; and Canadian choreographer Dana Gingras premiering the first of a six-part series together with media and dance artist Sonya Stefan and groupA’s Tot Onyx.
Further commissioned works will be presented throughout the festival, including Christina Wheeler with the second part of an extended vocal technique and electronics tone-poem suite titled »Totality of Blackness Trilogy.« ERAM (aka Marianna Viscaíno) and EPX (aka Linn da Quebrada crew member Pininga) will create a vortex-inducing b2b mix composed only of Brazilian productions, mainly those of residents of the ZONAexp label, with special vocals performed and transformed by SASKIA. »rehearsal letter« is a recorded studio session for transmediale x CTM 2021, produced as part of the development of a soundtrack for Frances Scott’s work Wendy, a film fan-letter to composer and musician Wendy Carlos. In 2016, Tom Richards built a music synthesiser and sequencer designed in 1976 - but never realised - by Daphne Oram (1925 - 2003), co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Based on Oram’s original designs, the Mini-Oramics uses graphic scores on overhead projector rolls, producing a »drawn sound synthesis.« This drawn-sound is used as a method to translate pages from Carlos’ original scores from »Timesteps« and »Theme Tune for A Clockwork Orange (Beethovania)« (1971), with new music composed by Richards.
Club Qu, IOR50 Studio & CTM Present: CQ5 is a virtual club night created together with Club Quarantäne. The night is modelled quite closely to a real club experience, including a virtual queue and bouncer as you arrive, and an elaborate digital interior to be explored, including a cloakroom where you can purchase merch, a bar which invites you to donate to Covid-19 causes, and a bathroom which acts as a multi-cubicle chat room. Especially for this night, we've teamed up with IOR50 Studio and its founder Sam Aldridge to present a queer motion capture archive within the virtual club’s space. The night's soundtrack has been collaboratively curated to feature an international range of queer collectives: Mexico City's Tortilla will be represented by Arieshandmodel, NYC's Oscar Nñ will be repping Papi Juice, Johannesburg's DORMANTYOUTH will arrive accompanied by their Pussy Party crew, Taiwanese collective ArtKB48 will appear with performance artist Betty Apple, salsa music lover ISAbella showcases Barcelona's Maricas collective, and the previously mentioned ZONAexp collective will feature EPX x ERAM feat. SASKIA.
Also in the programme, a selection of performances presented together with partners Nyege Nyege, Playfreely/BlackKaji, and Yes No Klub / Re:IMAGINE will be streamed throughout the festival, along with video pieces produced by CTM earlier in 2020. Originally produced and presented by these partners, such re-stream performances mean to give these artistic works wider exposure, while also questioning the streaming economy’s relentless demand for artists to constantly produce new content. We’ll also be announcing a selection of highlights from Nyege Nyege’s December edition shortly.
CTM’s closing concert this year will be presented together with Shameless/Limitless (S/L), one of Berlin’s long-standing concert series for live pop and experimental music. The co-curated lineup presents punk/club duo Amigdala who will release their debut album No Ritual Will Summon A Machine on 26 January, and Arbutus signee Sean Nicholas Savage, who embraces Disney and Broadway musical songwriting and performance tricks. Ultraflex is a relatively new “supergroup” consisting of Farao and Special-K that produce footloose club-pop, partly inspired by Soviet workout videos. We’re also excited to try out some live performer-audience interaction during the concert. Anyone tuning in can instantly upload short video reactions – dancing, cheering, applause, interpretive yoga with pets – and send them to the artists, as well as the rest of the online audience, using the browser-based Streamback app. Cheer the artists on and make requests, catch a glimpse of a familiar face that is watching remotely from their home computer… the outcome of this closing concert rests as much on you, the audience, as on the artists.
CTM Discourse Programme
Streaming live from studio dB on 21–23 January 2021, the CTM Discourse talk series focuses on multiple threads related to Transformation. Against the backdrop of Covid-19, queer and gender studies scholar Ben Trott and history of science researcher Edna Bonhomme draw on Berlin as a site of multiple communities and cultures as they consider queer, club, and African diasporic practices of care. Carla J. Maier, meLê yamomo, and AM Kanngieser with Zoe Todd suggest how we might transform our ways of listening as our political, environmental, economic, and cultural climates continue to change. Sébastien Darchen, Damien Charrieras, and John Willsteed introduce their forthcoming publication Electronic Cities: Music, Policies and Space in the 21st Century and in discussion with case study contributors Leila Adu-Gilmore, Sara Ross, Stéphane Sadoux and Ruxandra Trandafoiu explore the historical development, gentrification, and current pandemic-stricken states of dance music scenes in cities across Africa, Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia. Creators, musicians, writers, and researchers Cherie Hu, Jean-Hugues Kabuiku, Trevor McFedries, Caroline Busta and Lil Internet think through the chronic inequality and unsustainability embedded in creative industries’ technological and infrastructural frameworks. Longtime AI scholars, researchers, artists, and activists Jason Edward Lewis (Initiative for Indigenous Futures), data ethics researcher Maya Indira Ganesh (Leuphana University), and Ubuntu ethics proponent Sabelo Mhlambi (Bantucracy) converse with Tiara Roxanne on the political and relational entanglements of humans and AI.
Several artist talks will also be featured later in the week: Riar Rizaldi, who will be premiering his Radio Lab commission; an exchange between DeForrest Brown, Jr. and Alexander G Weheliye on how Black music and cultures have responded to and grown within contrasting colonial legacies of Europe and the USA; a panel discussion with Khyam Allami, Deena Abdelwahed, Counterpoint, and Matana Roberts on cultural biases inherent in music software and education; Poland’s queer club collective Oramics and Ewa Majewska in conversation on the state of female, non-binary, and queer music communities in Poland; and an interview with director Lisa Rovner on her film Sisters with Transistors that portrays female electronic music pioneers, joined by Frances Scott and Tom Richards. Sisters with Transistors will also be available to stream on demand during the festival, and until 14 February.
How to Connect and Interact During this Online Edition
This year, performing artists, participating speakers, and the CgTM team will be present on the CTM Discord chat server. Discord is a browser-based chat app that lets you interact with chats over multiple themed channels. The CTM Discord is open until 14 February 2021. Meet and chat with artists, participants, and other attendees as you explore the online festival. The CTM team will be posting updates and will also be available for questions and feedback.
Support performing artists via the CTM 2021 Solidarity Pass. Valued between 5–100€, all proceeds from the Solidarity Pass will be donated to participating artists via the open-source CTM Drop App, created by Ape Unit's Eventivize. The app is an exploration of alternative ways of valuating and monetising online music performance and art, aiming to offer the public different ways of financially supporting artists. Upon registration, festivalgoers receive 500 ◊Drops, which can be sent to artists of their choice during their performance. Alternatively, you can choose to distribute the ◊Drops evenly to all participating artists. After the festival, each participating artist will receive additional income (on top of their artist fee) based on the number of ◊Drops they have received. Unused ◊Drops will be equally split between all participating artists.
A further way to support artists is to browse and purchase some of their music. We've created a playlist for CTM 2021 – Transformation on Buy Music Club, a platform that allows anyone to create and browse lists of independent music purchasable on Bandcamp.
We’re also excited to be testing out the previously mentioned new Streamback browser-based app within our Discourse programme and festival closing concert. After registering for the app, you can record and send video questions to the talk Q&A sessions, or reactions to the closing concert performances, which will be visible to the speakers, artists, and audience.