IMA

IMAFICTION SERIES 2024/25

Presentation of the IMAfiction series in cooperation with the series XX Y X by Jade (Michaela Schwentner) at Echoraum Wien

The concept of the XX Y X series encompasses the work of local and international music artists and representatives of primarily experimental and electronic music and aims to present performances by composers of current contemporary music, electronic performances and collaborations between visual artists and musicians in combinations or solo.

Over the course of 2024 and 2025, all IMAfiction video portraits will be shown in 8 - 10 events. Wherever possible, the portrayed artist and the filmmaker will be present with a talk and/or live act.

Program

12 11 2024 8pm
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Screening IMAfiction portrait#05 Andrea Sodomka
A portrait by Gabriele Mathes (2010)

The power of degree zero is the distributing intelligence
Andrea Sodomka, Norbert Math (alien productions) AI-generated text and sound performance
Presentation: Doris Ingrisch

The Degree Zero Power is the Distributive Intelligence is a quote from the libretto of the AI opera “Performing Utopia” by alien productions, which will be premiered as a radio opera commissioned by ORF Kunstradio in 2021. In “Performing Utopia”, the AI-generated texts are interpreted by human singers and speakers. In “The Degree Zero Power is the Distributive Intelligence”, the focus is on virtual voices: virtual singers - virtual voices - virtual sounds

What interests me most about working with artificial intelligence is the fuzziness, the mistakes, the imperfections.

Andrea Sodomka, 2024
alien.mur.at/performing-utopia

Screening IMAfiction portrait#03 Heidi Grundmann
A portrait by Roberto Paci Dalò [2007]

03 12 2024 8pm
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Screening IMAfiction portrait#01 Liesl Ujvary
A portrait by Martin Breindl (2006)

Performance by Brigitta Bödenauer
Presentation: Martin Breindl

Fragmented collage, a cacophony of forgotten whispers and lost echoes. Boundaries blur and reality shifts, creating a surreal landscape of emotion and perception. A fleeting illusion of a material world - distorted or manipulated. “Fading Creatures” plays with residual imprints of acoustic memories and (re)creates moments of transition and decay.

21 01 2025 8pm
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Screening IMAfiction portrait#04 Eliane Radigue + Concert
A portrait by IMA (2006)
Presentation: Elisabeth Schimana

Eliane Radigue has composed electronic music since the sixties. She is the only French woman composer of her generation who can be considered to be a pioneer of this genre, and of minimal music as well.

Performances

OCCAM XVIII for double bass recorder solo
OCCAM I for harp solo
ODDAM Ocean V for harp and double bass recorder

Harp: Rhodri Davies
Double Bass Recorder: Pia Palme

Éliane Radigue on Occam Ocean
[Program notes by Radigue for the premiere of Occam XVIII and Occam River V at Phipps Hall, University of Huddersfield, UK, 2014]

The idea for this piece was initially inspired by a large mural that I saw by chance in 1973, at the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles. It showed the “spectrum of electromagnetic waves” moving from the largest to the smallest of known measurable wavelengths. Out of this large spectrum, there is a tiny zone from slightly less than 100 Hz to slightly more than 10 KHz that the ears of certain species populating the planet earth, have transformed into “sounds”.

Later, I discovered interesting parallels with several of my reflections on William of Ockham and his famous treatise “Ockham’s Razor”. Expressed most succinctly in his own words, “The simplest, the best”, it has been adapted and used by numerous artist/creators. Last came the distant recollection of a science fiction story I had read about the existence of a mythical ocean. Only the title remained etched in my memory, “Occam’s Razor”, which explains the origin of the spelling I chose. It seems in fact that the Ocean with its multiple waves allows us to symbolically be in contact with a rather large spectrum of vibrating undulations, stretching from the great deep-sea swells to wavelets sparkling on a fine summer day. This explains the overall “structure” of the project.

The work mode is based on an individual “image” illustrated and evoked within each solo. Each musician is guided by his or her personal “image”. This provides the essential, letting descriptive words and evocations establish a system of communication as the piece is being elaborated, and through this intuitive-instinctive process, we are guided to the very essence of music. There will be as many solos as there are volunteers willing to enter into this shared experience. They become the “sources”.

Occam XVIII [Program notes by Pia Palme]

Breath and tongue coax the long air column of the contrabass recorder into vibration. Generously the air flows through the instrument, in and out. A low sound appears at first, later pulsing partials start to oscillate. As the instrument surrenders, fractal moments of articulation gather like beads on a string. Is there an end to the flow, is there a beginning? What happens between the in-breath and the out-breath? Is continuity a mere illusion? A few days after Eliane’s 82nd birthday in 2014 work on Occam XVIII was finished, accompanied by the perfume of abundant flower bouquets in her living room.

24 09 2024 8pm
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Rebekah Wilson © Rebekah Wilson

Anne La Berge © Keke Keukelaar

Screening IMAfiction portrait#02 Rebekah Wilson & Screening IMAfiction portrait#07 Anne La Berge

Connect

Rebekah Wilson and Anne La Berge have crossed paths since for more than 20 years as performers, researchers, co-teachers and friends. Every interaction of theirs has added a facet to their complexly woven relationship where their discussions about music, networks and life have no beginnings or endings. They just keep spinning their mutual story.

For this event Anne will interview Rebekah and Rebekah will interview Anne. They will delve into their separate IMAfictions from long ago and trace the links from back then to the present.

There will be words, songs, sounds, music and a solo performance by Anne La Berge.

Postponed indefinitely due to illness
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Screening IMAfiction portrait#09 Beatriz Ferreyra
A portrait by Nathalie Singer & Elisabeth Schimana (2017)

11 06 2024 8pm
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Screening IMAfiction portrait#06 Maryanne Amacher
A portrait by Elisabeth Schimana & Lena Tikhonova (2013)

21 05 2024 8pm
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Screening IMAfiction portrait#04 Electric Indigo + live Performance
A portrait by Michaela Schwentner (2016)

Under Way Elastic
A new piece exploring spaces between beats.

09 01 2024 8pm
echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66
A-1150 Wien

Screening IMAfiction portrait#10 Elisabeth Schimana
A portrait by Seppo Gründler & Johanna Moder (2018)
Presentation: Seppo Gründler

Elisabeth Schimana & Igor Gross
Virus #1.3 Mutation for percussion Solo
live performance

Virus #1.3 Mutation for percussion Solo compositions for a live-generated electronic sound body (audio score) and acoustic instruments (interpretation) It is a battle and synthesis of the two sound bodies. Together they stay alive. Virus #1 is dedicated to individual instrumental groups.

The live-generated electronic body of sound is host and hostess to which the string sounds dock, adapt to it, penetrate it and use it for their replication. At the beginning this body is immune, but in the course of the piece it gives up its resistance, absorbs the string sounds and nothing stands in the way of the virus multiplying.