In response to the worsening Covid-19 conditions this winter, CTM’s 23rd edition has been split into two parts. Final confirmations for CTM Part 1 focus on the festival’s exhibition and new installations presented at Kunstquartier Bethanien, plus online talks and workshops to kick-off our Discourse programme. Looking ahead, we’re excited to share first elements of a thrilling concert and club programme, which will take place in May at the heart of CTM 2022 Part 2. More CTM 2022 Part 2 programming will be announced in March.
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we unfortunately cannot rule out the possibility that certain events might need to be cancelled or postponed. We hope for the best and to be able to connect with each other under one roof again.
CTM 2022 Part 1 Final Confirmations
The CTM 2022 exhibition »Connected Alienation / Vernetzte Entfremdung« provides a look into various aspects of working collaboratively in pandemic times. The works by Ale Hop, Ali Eslami&Mamali Shafahi,Dana Gingras / Animals of Distinction,Hugo Esquinca, and Ibrahim Quraishiare the result of artistic exchanges across distances. The works involve a wide range of voices including Peaches, Marie Davidson, Lucrecia Dalt, KMRU, and many more. Taken together, they point to potentials, effects, successes, and pitfalls of telematically mediated contact and encounters. How can connections, artistic exchange, and mutual understanding be developed and nurtured when physical togetherness is not possible?
Under the title »Connected Alienation – Bonus Tracks,« three installations will be presented in the Kunstquartier Bethanien Projektraum, highlighting works created through some of CTM’s ongoing international collaborations. Commissioned by Nusasonic and Musicboard Berlin, artists Collo Awata and Madam Data will premiere an installation resulting from an online residency spanning Berlin and Singapore. »Yowa Kontinuum« is inspired by nonlinear paradigms of time and the time-marking strategies. Situating their experiences according to the Bakongo cosmogram and exploring non-Western concepts of time, the artists demand that the moment of our exit from the colony is not »now« or »then,« but at every single point along our continuum. Gaspar Cohen digs into the ΚΣΥΜΕ/CMRC Contemporary Music Research Centre in Athens co-founded by Iannis Xenakis, to create »Iterative Cast,« an audiovisual work that scrutinizes the tensions among different epistemological standpoints to affirm uncertainty as a potentiality of the present. The work was created within the framework of Chronotopia, a project by CTM and Goethe-Institut Athens. »Fragile Fragments« by pantea and umatic & telematique revolves around the concept of unexpected and diverse life forms that may occur under extreme conditions or in fragile ecosystems – blurring the line between plant and animal kingdoms. The work is commissioned by MUTEK Dubai, CTM Festival, and Goethe-Institut Tehran.
A limited number of virtual visits are available to the CTM 2022 exhibition and installations plus the »Modular Organ System« as well as the Radio Lab works by Fronte Violeta and Andrius Arutiunian – for those who are unable to join us in person. Conducted by local friends and colleagues within CTM’s extended network, the visits aim to foster personal exchange, and to offer a glimpse of several CTM events at a time when more people than ever might not be able to make it in person.
The CTM 2022 Discourse series will offer several workshops and participative online formats for Part 1. This edition of the Rethinking Music Ecosystems – an ongoing series aimed at encouraging thinking and exchange on sustaining more equitable music systems – invites Berlin-based collective Black Swan to concoct a participatory experiment with the extended music community. Employing decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) infrastructure and thought in a bid to realise new ways of creating work, Black Swan will work with a number of resource-pledging silent stakeholders. Black Swan will offer a public presentation and Q&A titled »Prototyping Sonic Institutions« to kick off the project at CTM, and an open call for participants will be launched in March.
Several discussion modules will also be streamed via CTM’s YouTube channel. Music researcher Shzr Ee Tan will lead a module exploring how we might uncover hidden flows in the world of music and performance, reframing discussions on labour, authenticity, and creation in dialogue with researchers Rehilwe Mooketsiand Anjeline de Dios, who bring specific perspectives from South Africa and the Philippines respectively. Radio Lab Kontinuum commission winner Jonathan Reus will present the launch of »In Search of Good Ancestors / Ahnen in Arbeit,« a year-long sound work exploring intergenerational thinking and voice synthesis.
A series of online workshops for artists by artists, titled A2A Transmission, will once again offer sessions to sound practitioners with the aim of expanding their skill sets and practices at a time when touring and in-person performance opportunities are greatly reduced. Jessica Ekomane walks musicians through beginner practices in Max/MSP; artist and technologist Hexorcismos explores deep learning techniques for audio; producer, rapper, and founder of Holdersland Haleek Maul delivers an intro into Web3 and NFTs for musicians; SVBKVLT affiliate Gooooose discusses how to develop a singular sound using stock plugins; Senyawa’s Rully Shabara examines the voice as representative of one's ideas and ideals while convening participants in a shouting workshop; producer and composer SØS Gunver Ryberg offers insights into translating artistic practice into composing for video games and film. These intimate and practical 2-hour sessions see various artists provide insights into their specific practices.
Running parallel to CTM, our sister festival transmediale closes out a year-long edition with an exhibition at Akademie der Künste, and a symposium at HKW which explores their theme »for refusal« through positions of belief and compromise.
First Artists (Re)confirmed for CTM 2022 Part 2
Festivals are as much about art and music as they are about exchange and togetherness. The second half of CTM 2022 heads full-force into the shared experiences and dancefloor euphoria that have been at the heart of the festival since the beginning. Here are the first concerts and club nights of our May programme. A preliminary CTM 2022 Part 2 schedule is available online and Part 2 Festival Passes are on sale now.
- Alada [BR/DE]
- Animistic Beliefs [NL]
- Aquarian pres. »Ouroboros« live A/V (visuals by Sougwen) [INT]
- Arsenal [UG]
- Avtomat [PL]
- Bloomfeld [DE]
- Chrisman [UG]
- deli girls [US]
- dj Botox [DE]
- De Schuurmann [NL]
- DJ Fuckoff [NZ/DE]
- Ecko Bazz [UG]
- Edna Martinez [CO/DE]
- Elvin Brandhi [UK]
- Gábor Lázár [HU]
- Haxan [DE]
- Ifeoluwa [NG/UK]
- I Hate Models [FR]
- Jennifer Cardini [FR/DE]
- Jennifer Walton [UK]
- Little Snake [CA]
- Loraine James [UK]
- Machine Girl [US]
- Nakul Krishnamurthy [IN]
- Nazar & Shapednoise present Sentient_1 [INT]
- Nene H [TR/DE]
- NURSE3D [INT]
- Opium Hum [DE]
- Ostbam [PL/DE]
- Raed Yassin – »The Phantom Orchestra« [INT]
- Slumberland feat Sainkho Namtchylak [BE/RU]
- Urin [INT]
- VARIÁT [UA/DE]
- Yazzus [UK/DE]
- Yung Singh [UK]
Having soundtracked CTM’s multiplayer Cyberia festival environment last year, Elvin Brandhi returns to perform live at the festival. Combining field recordings, (in)organic noise, digital synthesis, and eerie improvised vocals, she produces brusque and visceral sonic environments. Ukrainian artist VARIÁT, aka Kotra, uses guitars, synths, and drums to modulate and warp a hypnotic wall of low-end sounds.
Belgian musician, composer and instrument maker Slumberlandcollaborates with Tuvan voice-artist Sainkho Namtchylak, known for being the first female overtone artist and her avant-garde interpretations of traditional chants. Slumberland’s hypnotic and tactile sounds, generated by various mechanical objects, coalesce with Namtchylak’s unearthly, compelling strains. They will perform in a concert that also features already-announced projects »The Phantom Orchestra« by Raed Yassin, an archival project of solo improvisational performances developed in the context of pandemic lockdowns, and »Tesserae« byNakul Krishnamurthy.
Previously announced artists DJ Fuckoff, Jennifer Walton, Loraine James, and Ostbam perform in a programme alongside Bedouin Records affiliate Aquarian, who will present a live audiovisual performance of new material combined with his 2020 release, The Snake That Eats Itself. The project, art directed by artist and researcher Sougwen Chung, incorporates Chung’s visual explorations of the existing and potential interplay between humans, machines, and ecologies. A fiery head-to-head from Angolan bass alchemist Nazar and Sicilian sonic sculptor Shapednoise, »Sentient_1« was born from the duo's desire to reinterpret club music without being chained to templates or predictable influences. Melting noise music into rugged kuduro, UK drill, acerbic trap, and grinding techno, Sentient_1 reinterprets anything from the hardcore continuum as a jagged web of arrows and wires.
DJ, producer, and founder of Overthinker Mob, Bloomfeld weaves afrofuturist bass music with experimental club sounds in deconstructed DJ sets. Irreverent of style and genre, DJ Botox is the new side project of the gender-subversive artist Born In Flamez, who is also one half of DJ duo Sick Girls. Yazzusis a Berlin-based DJ and producer from the UK whose 90s hardcore-inspired sound refers to the decade’s iconic music and culture in hybrid mixes that traverse the spectrum of dance music. Another artist influenced by the 90s UK underground scene and part of the East Asian dance music collective Daytimers, Yung Singh has a unique style rooted in jungle, UK soundsystem culture, and Punjabi music.
Joining deli girls and NURSE3D, Animistic Beliefs specialise in improvisational live performances using analogue and modular synths and drum machines to produce ravey, dark electro, and IDM/acid techno sounds. Presenting a world premiere live set at CTM, Little Snake is an emerging talent from Calgary whose cinematic approach to sound blends with an encyclopedia of influences including grime, math rock, acid techno, noise, and jungle. His debut album, A Fragmented Love Story, Written by the Infinite Helix Architect, was released on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint in 2021. I Hate Models, known for his high-power, shifting ventures into acid, rave, industrial, and trance, performs following his latest 2021 EP, Gemstones Obsidian.Nene H’s classic rave selections and live performances have earned much appreciation, in addition to more experimental homages to her Turkish heritage. Alada aims to challenge social paradigms such as sexuality and aesthetic standards through emotionally charged sets inspired by Brazilian Afrofuturism. Opium Hum will open with sombre, hazy drones and fantastical soundscapes permeated by deep, shifting rhythms to create what can only be called a waking dream.
Founder of the labels Correspondant and Dischi Autumno, Jennifer Cardini brings a well-informed and broad appreciation for dance music to her sets.Ifeoluwa is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and academic with a focus on fusing together global drum-heavy sonics, the darker side of UK club music, and abstract left-field techno DJ mixes, leaving club-goers simultaneously dancing and crying in the club. Producer and vocalist Avtomatis also known for hosting the Polish queer parties Ciężki Brokat, W Mocy Nocy, and Dystopia as well as his bass-heavy tracks that often have improvised vocals and unusual rhythms. Another producer with a continuously changing output, Gábor Lázár experiments between algorithmic abstraction and recognisable club sounds following his most recent album, Source, released in 2020 on Planet Mu. Previously-announced artists De Schuurmann and Edna Martinez round out the night’s lineup.
CTM’s ongoing exchange with Nyege Nyege will bring several new exciting voices from Uganda to Berlin for the first time. Espousing socio-political frustration on violence, religion, and poverty in Uganda’s ghettos, Ecko Bazz’s delirious and visceral lyricism screamed in his native Luganda language will be supported by the cybernetic next wave intensity of rising producer Chrisman. Bazz appears ahead of his highly-anticipated full length on Nyege Nyege’s Hakuna Kulala label, which is also gearing up to publish a debut by Arsenal, a Kampala-based percussion trio with a heavy body style of drumming interspersed with soul vocals and jungle infused trance.
Urin and Haxan create high-voltage sounds that aim to broaden the sonic spectrums of punk and hardcore. With only a very small discography of short, angry, and super noisy hardcore songs, Urin have thus far garnered a reputation for high-voltage live shows filled with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek antics, such as power tools used as guitar torture devices falling out from band members’ pockets. While he is at home in Berlin’s underground rap scene, newcomerHaxan aims for a balancing act to eschew genres, creating moody mixtapes that show his fascination and expansion into metal, alternative, and hardcore sounds in the spirit of Digital Hardcore Recordings.
Read more about these and all other artists here.
Tickets, Passes, and Accreditation
There are no festival passes for CTM 2022 Part 1 in January/February; tickets to individual events are now on sale. In-person access to all festival events will be offered under the »2G+ rule« (vaccinated, recovered, plus booster or negative test, and wearing a FFP2 mask throughout the event). Please check our detailed event access and hygiene rules.
Festival passes to CTM 2022 Part 2 are now on sale in limited quantities. Tickets will become available in spring.
Streamed content for both parts will be offered free of charge via CTM’s YouTube channel.