WHERE: MONOM Studio, Funkhaus Berlin
WHEN: Sunday, January 26, 2025
WHAT: Listening Sessions & Panel Discussion
WHO: MONOM, Maria W. Horn, Thomas Ankersmit
TICKETS: €15
Since 2017, MONOM has collaborated with over 200 artists to create a rich archive of spatial sound artworks. These projects represent diverse perspectives and approaches, exploring the expressive potential of the 4DSOUND instrument, the evolving possibilities of spatial sound as an artistic medium, and the power of embodied listening experiences. MONOM has partnered with CTM Festival to present selected works from the spatial sound archive, featuring world premieres and Berlin premieres that highlight the breadth and depth of our collaborative projects.
The soundworks featured in these sessions were created during artist residencies at MONOM. Each artist brought a distinct creative vision, collaborating with MONOM’s team to explore and add another dimension to their practice.
During the sessions, we will also feature works created by MONOM, showcasing the studio's own concepts and lines of study.
On February 1, before the listening sessions begin, we invite you to a free panel discussion titled "Spatial Sound as an Artistic Medium." This conversation will bring together artists, producers and studios working in spatial sound to discuss its creative possibilities.
This latest programme marks over five years of collaboration between MONOM and CTM, and reinforces CTM’s ongoing interest in the evolution of spatial sound. Berlin is a growing hub for research and artistic creativity in spatial sound, which we aim to support through commissioned works, labs, and collaborations with partners such as d&b audio, Technische Universität Berlin, Usomo, and others.
During the sessions, we will also feature works created by MONOM, showcasing the studio's own concepts and lines of study.
Program
Sunday January 26th 2025
13:00 – 17:00
Wilding AI Open Studio
Free entrance
Session 1: 18:00
The Elements “Water” x MONOM (Listening Session) - Berlin Premiere (20 min)
Lo! The Dim Shadows of the Night by Maria W. Horn (Listening Session) – Berlin Premiere (40 min)
Ticket price for Session 1: €15
Session 2: 20:00
The Elements “Earth” x MONOM (Listening Session) - Berlin Premiere (20 min)
Thomas Ankersmit (Listening Session) – World Premiere (40 min)
Ticket price for Session 2: €15
All the featured sound works were created in collaboration with MONOM Studio.
About MONOM
MONOM is a spatial sound studio and immersive art lab working at the intersection of music, art, technology, and storytelling. We transform listening into an active, multisensory experience, uncovering the hidden dimensions of sound and its profound ability to shape perception. Through our work, we aim to awaken a deeper connection to ourselves and the world around us.
From composers and filmmakers to sound designers, magicians, technologists, galleries, and cultural institutions, we collaborate with visionary creators across disciplines. Together, we are redefining the role of sound in contemporary culture, unlocking its potential to immerse, heal, and inspire.
About CTM – Festival for Adventurous Music & Art
CTM connects multi-perspective experiences, critical reflection, hedonism, and collaborative learning via a yearly festival and continuous collaborative projects, publications, commissions, concerts, club nights, and more. The festival's 26th edition will take place 24 January – 2 February 2025, presenting a myriad of experimental, personal, and emotional artistic practices that mirror a world in distress and uncertainty. Spatial sound is one of the ongoing threads within the festival programme, explored through commissioned works, labs, and collaborations. Concerts, club nights, workshops, artistic labs, and talks run across Berlin venues silent green, radialsystem, Volksbühne, MONOM, Berghain, Oxi, RSO.Berlin, Morphine Raum, and more.
About the artists:
Maria W Horn
Maria W Horn (1989) is a composer whose work explores the inherent spectral properties of sound. Her compositions employ a varied instrumentation ranging from analog synthesizers to choir, string instruments, pipe organ and various chamber music formats. Synthetic sound is often paired with acoustic instruments in order to extend the instruments timbral capacities with precise control of timbre, tuning and texture.
Maria combines spectralist techniques and site specific source material in order to explore the inherent memories of a building, object or geographical area. In her recent compositions she uses acoustic artifacts from physical spaces to create musical frameworks for her compositions.
Using these acoustic imprints as a starting point Maria weaves intricate harmonic patterns that slowly transform from intimate fragility to searing high-density aural monoliths. Her debut album Kontrapoetik (2018) is a historical investigation, and a kind of counter-exorcism tackling the deceivingly serene, yet turmoiled past of her home region Ångermanland in the North of Sweden. Dies Irae (2021) derives from the resonant frequencies of an empty machine hall from the mining region of Bergslagen and Vita Duvans Lament (2020) is a sonic excavation of what used to be the only panoptic cell prison built in Sweden.
In addition to her artistic practice she is also the co-founder of Swedish record label XKatedral.
About the work:
Lo! The Dim Shadows of the Night is a piece for vocal duo and electroacoustic sound, in collaboration with MONOM for the large-scale 4DSOUND system, commissioned by STUK - House for Dance, Image & Sound, for Ocean Of Sound 2023. Continuing the work which was started with her 2020 piece Dies Irae, Maria uses a modified form of traditional tonal harmonic language to invoke an uncanny middle ground between the classical western polyphonic vocal tradition and contemporary electronic music.
The piece uses a mixture of algorithmically generated synthesis, created within the SuperCollider framework, and nighttime recordings of the Night Jar bird made in Skuleskogen in Marias home-region in Västernorrland, Sweden. The piece is sung by Ansis Bētiņš and Artūrs Čukurs from Riga, Latvia. The text is based on fragments from the hymn Ecce iam noctis.
In addition to the fixed electronic components of the music, and the live vocal performance by Bētiņš and Čukurs, Maria joins the ensemble herself playing spatially processed pitched glasses, adding a ghostly shade to the dominant role of the human voices.
Ecce iam noctis tenuatur umbra
lucis aurora rutilans coruscat;
LO! the dim shadows of the night are waning;
radiantly glowing, dawn of day returneth
Thomas Ankersmit
Thomas Ankersmit is a musician and sound artist based in Berlin, focussing on the Serge Modular analog synthesizer. Ankersmit’s music combines intricate sonic detail and raw electric textures with a very physical and spatial experience of sound. Acoustic phenomena such as infrasound and otoacoustic emissions (sounds emanating from inside the head, generated by the ears themselves) play an important role in his work, as does a deliberate, creative misuse of the equipment.
Ankersmit’s music is released on the PAN, Touch and Shelter Press labels, and he’s worked closely with Phill Niblock, Kevin Drumm and Valerio Tricoli. His work has been presented at Reina Sofia, Museu Serralves, Hamburger Bahnhof, Stedelijk Museum,Tate Modern, MoMA PS1 and festivals throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas.
About the work:
FAQ
What will happen in the MONOM lounge?
Beverages will be served in the lounge before, during and after the listening experience.
Which payment method is accepted in the lounge?
Cash only.
Can I bring my dog?
Dogs are not allowed in the space.
Can minors join the experience?
These sessions are for visitors over 15 years of age.
Tickets:
If not sold out, tickets will be available for purchase at the door using a QR code, up to the venue's capacity limit. If you wish to pay with cash, please bring the exact amount.
Tickets are non-refundable, but they are transferable.
If you are experiencing financial scarcity and need help to afford the ticket, please reach out to us.
PLEASE NOTE
We recommend arriving 30 minutes before the start of the live performance.
Cell phone use is not permitted during the sessions.
Photos are allowed before and after the experience.
Silence is required during the listening experience, if you need to talk you are welcome to do it in the lounge area.
MONOM has a zero-tolerance policy for any form of abuse, harassment, or discrimination.
Ramps will be available in the studio for wheelchair users. While the lounge isn't directly wheelchair accessible, if you need assistance entering, the MONOM team is here to help and ensure a comfortable experience.