Unsound Releases Artist Names And Schedule For Unsound 2020: Intermission
Unsound Intermission takes place online between 1st – 11th October. Check out the schedule here, including collaborations between musicians, commissioned A/V works, a sleep concert, dance and meditation workshops, guided walks, custom-built virtual worlds, experimental webinar sessions, community listening events and tours. On top of this program are discussion panels, which will be added next week.
“The Internet can be an extremely exhausting place with a multitude of voices, but often lacking a feeling of real connection. We’ve tried to navigate the possibilities of different platforms, working with artists in a way that creates a feeling of engagement, support and excitement, but also plays with existing formats,” says Unsound Executive Director Gosia Plysa.
“It’s impossible to expect anyone to spend as much time behind a screen as they would in the physical realm of the festival in Kraków, so we’ve tried to create an online event where you can dip in and out across 11 days, or stay for the duration if you have a lot of ‘screen stamina’. No doubt there will be glitches along the way, but we hope the result will be always at least interesting, a way of looking for paths forward through a very disorientating time,” adds Unsound Artistic Director Mat Schulz.
The HQ for the online program is the schedule on the Unsound website, with links to program elements – some of which require registration. Meanwhile, a freshly launched Unsound Discord will function as a meeting place where the audience can find out what’s currently happening, or just hang out and chat, sometimes engaging directly with specific projects, even conversing with artists and curators presenting work during the festival.
The opening show of this year’s edition is Weavings, a durational improvisation conceived and co-curated by Nicolás Jaar, structured in the manner of a long fabric of sound, with performers playing with the artists coming before and after them. Performers so far confirmed include Aho Ssan, Angel Bat Dawid, Dirar Kalash, Ellen Fullman, Księżyc, Laraaji, Ka Baird, Jaar himself, Paweł Szamburski, Raphael Roginski, Resina, Rolando Hernandes and Wukir Suryadi & Rully Shabara of Senyawa.
A/V shows created with online streaming in mind will come from Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones, DeForrest Brown, Jr. & James Hoff, TCF and Antonina Nowacka. Essays merging sound and image have also been commissioned from Steve Goodman and Kristen Gallerneaux, as well as the streaming platform Nine Nights, curated by GAIKA, GLOR1A and Shannen SP. 陆明龙 / Lawrence Lek will show his film AIDOL 爱道, and take participants on a tour through the world this film features. Percussionists Miłosz Pękala & Hubert Zemler will perform new interpretations of two pieces by Jlin.
Unsound will also feature a series of free online workshops for which participants need to register. This includes deep listening and laughter meditation workshops with Laraaji, as well as Jersey Club 101 with UNIIQU3, and a Gqom Dance Workshop with Esi.J, set to the tune of DJ sets by Griffit Vigo and Rudeboyz.
Visual duo Pussykrew are collaborating with 700 Bliss (Moor Mother & DJ Haram) to create an interactive journey through a world inspired by the music and lyrics of the duo. NAXS Corp and Meuko! Meuko! will present AFTERLIFE : ev20f1, an online game, experimental space and curatorial project. The customised multiplayer will include a narrative program of Taiwanese experimental artists as part of a wider theater-like experience, including Meuko! Meuko!, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang in duo with Dutch E Germ, as well as 落差草原 / Prairie WWWW and 破地獄 / Scattered Purgatory. The project also includes an in-game pan-Asian showcase of DJs and producers featuring Sonia Calico, Gabber Modus Operandi, 33EMYBW, Hyph11e, Leevisa, ASJ, Mars89 and Wanton Witch, as well as visual works by 陈天灼 / Tianzhuo Chen.
Unsound will also present ∞ o'clock, a second durational piece where artists will create music designed to allow one to sleep, listen, or to enter a meditative state. Performers include Emily A. Sprague, Lucrecia Dalt, Félicia Atkinson, Bartosz Kruczyński / Earth Trax, KMRU and Forest Management. Filmmaker and artist David OReilly will create visuals throughout, as well as stream his piece Quarantine Dreams. ∞ o'clock will run six hours in length, and will be broadcast four times across a 24-hour period.
Audio pieces include a collective guided walk in RL by Patiño & Schuttel, and a collective listening piece by Zosia Hołubowska and Julia Giertz, while Krakow’s alternative Jewish initiative FestivALT will take participants on a guided Zoom tour of invisible Jewish Kazimierz, a district well known to all Unsound Krakow visitors. YouTuber Benjamin Bennett will host a live walk and talk stream, and field recordist Chris Watson will take us through the places he recorded during lockdown earlier this year.
Commenting on all the above via live talk-show streams is vlogger Drumpilled, who will attend their first Unsound ‘in person’, via a custom 3D Virtual Avatar System designed by Sam Rolfes.
Several of the projects outlined were selected from the Unsound call for entries – this is indicated in the online schedule. Although we received many strong entries, budget and program time constraints unfortunately restricted how many we could choose.
As previously announced, Liquid Architecture and Unsound will present three experimental zoom sessions on Machine Listening between 2nd – 4th October. You can join these sessions as a participant in a webinar, but remember to register throught our schedule.
Despite dealing with budget cuts, the entire program is free. If you wish to support the festival, you can do so via Patreon. Remember also that Unsound is publishing a book and album, which you can pre-order here.
Recent days were dedicated to Unsound Lab, a series of closed workshops and discussions. The second part is taking place this coming weekend. It’s addressed to music industry professionals, especially those in the first part of their career, with participants joining from six continents.