@ ARS Electronica festival 2017
cellF received in the 2017 Prix Ars an Honorary Mention award (Hybrid Arts) and performed 3 performances as part of the ARS Electronica festival:
1. cellF and Rupert Huber playing a Grand Piano.
2. cellF and Lucas Abela playing a sheet of glass.
3. cellF and Cynthia Zaven playing a prepared piano.
We also installed prototypes and material documenting the research and development process into cellF, revealing some of the processes and theory that underpins the work.
Images from ARS Electronica
Performers
Rupert Huber is an Austrian composer and musician. In 1994, Huber founded Huber Musik to publish his own music, and in same year, founded Tosca with Richard Dorfmeister. Huber’s 2006 release of Fuck Dub Remixes CD was also created in collaboration with Dorfmeister. Huber’s works have been commissioned, amongst others, by Centre Pompidou, Wiener Festwochen, and Ars Electronica. He lives in Vienna and Berlin.
What has been described as “a trumpet player trapped in a two dimensional universe” is in fact the unique work of Lucas Abela, a maverick musician with an unhealthy obsession with sheets of broken glass. In his infamous show, which has astonished and bemused countless people in over 45 countries, Abela ecstatically purses his lips against panes of amplified glass while deftly employing various vocal techniques ranging from throat singing to raspberries, turning discarded shards into crude musical instruments.
The results are a wild array of cacophonous noise that is oddly controlled and strangely musical. The instruments’ simple, original and effective premise is a welcome respite from the technically complicated musical performances of modern times. A unique act redefining the expression “don’t try this at home,” this show quite simply needs to be witnessed to be fully appreciated, let alone understood.
Cynthia Zaven is a composer, pianist and artist based in Beirut. She performs classical, experimental and improvised music in solo shows as well as in collaboration with other artists.
Her projects combine a variety of media including video, photography, performance and the use of archive material to explore the relationship between sound, memory and identity through interwoven narratives.
Her works include Untuned Piano Concerto With Delhi Traffic Orchestra (performance, 2006), Morse Code Composition (Soundworks, ICA, 2012), Bunker Fairy Tale (12 channel sound installation with video, 2013), and more recently, Perpetuum Mobile, a 12 channel sound installation that was exhibited within the epic temple of Bacchus, in the World Heritage site of Baalbeck, and nominated for the Prix Ars Electronica Award 2017
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