Hidden in the endless blue, where no map leads, lies an archipelago where art, music and science meet and come to life. On Sonic Island, we explore homemade instruments, algorithms and technologies while dancing around palm trees made of cyber junk illuminated by neon lights.

For this edition, we are looking forward to concerts by Vinyl-terror & -horror and The Uncontrolled Manifold. The Nuklear Nektar Bar will provide refreshing drinks.

Vinyl-terror & -horror

The artist duo Vinyl-terror & -horror, consisting of Camilla Sørensen (1978) and Greta Christensen (1977), works at the intersection of sound and visual art. The duo is known for its captivating turntable concerts and immersive, humorous, post-apocalyptic sound installations. Characteristic of their turntable performances and their compositional work in general is that the duo approaches the medium of vinyl from a sculptural perspective, using the turntable itself and the vinyl material as compositional tools that lead to unexpected results. Vinyl-terror & -horror use manipulated records, including broken, baked, collaged ‘cut-ups’ on multi-pickup turntables, and mix a wide range of culturally diverse music genres in a non-hierarchical mix to create an abstract cinematic sound story.

The Uncontrolled Manifold

Dancing with sympoetic machines

The Uncontrolled Manifold works with electronics and machines that possess autonomy and obstinacy. These machines are brought into interaction with each other, creating danceable polyrhythms and, at the same time, a fascinating shadow play, as the machines are mounted on an overhead projector and their interaction is projected. Analogue oscillators generate self-organising coordination dynamics and organic patterns, and the performance allows us to experience the utopian potential of analogue communication.

The Uncontrolled Manifold is the current performance project by Christian Faubel, who researches and works as an interdisciplinary scientist and artist. Christian Faubel holds a doctorate in electrical engineering and from 2002 to 2012 conducted research on autonomous systems at the Institute for Neuroinformatics at the interface of robotics, neuroscience and psychology. From 2012 to 2018, he was a lecturer at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in the field of experimental computer science. Since 2020, he has been Professor of Smart Connected Products in the Code & Context programme at the Technical University of Cologne.

Nuclear Nectar

Mobile laboratory kitchen by RaumZeitPiraten & Kara Handgraaf

The walk-in, expansive installation invites visitors to linger among peculiar elixirs that are offered as potions. Here, a different kind of intoxication is being cooked up, a self-generating soundscape wafts through the room, mingling with drops of an unknown essence, the scraping of a stirring rod in a viscous substance, the bubbling of liquids in glass flasks and stills. It unfolds its consciousness-altering effect in visitors' ear canals while unusual ingredients are mixed together in bizarre combinations in this laboratory kitchen. An attempt at a substantial break from visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli. read less