For the first time ever, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art is hosting an international festival of sonic arts under the title Fri LYD. During ten hectic days in June a wide range of sound installation and performances will be on display, all exploring the grey area between visual art and sound art. With this festival, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, wants to present as wide a field of artists as possible and offer a nuanced view of what sound art means and how it can be expressed. Sonic art is growing rapidly, as museums, festivals and biennales testify. But what are the characteristics of sonic arts as a genre? What tendencies and movements are happening in the grey area between sonic and visual arts?
All these installations have been selected by Belgian curator Joost Fonteyne and together they form the central part of the festival. A static hum fills the room, which is bursting with giant light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Canadian art group Artificels’ work,Condemned Bulbs, is one of the aesthetic centrepieces of the sonic arts festival. The piece Other Side/Break by Clea Coudsi and Eric Herbin allows for a sense of humour by letting a toy truck drive around on a road made of vinyl. In Permafrost by Aernoudt Jacobs, the sound of ice freezing and thawing brings global warming to mind, and afterthought is also what the work Soundtracks by Stijn Demeulenaere demands of its audience. Here we are all asked to reflect a while on the sounds we remember that have made the greatest impression on us.
In addition, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary art has put together a varied live music programme in cooperation with the Danish organisation for electronic and experimental art SNYK. The programme features some of the most interesting Danish and international names in sonic art. Some performances will be mostly musical experiences, such as that of internationally renowned Theremin artist Dorit Chrysler, while others will experiment with sounds recorded in nature such as that of Norwegian artist Jana Winderen. As a new endeavour in Den Frie centre of contemporary arts, students of sonic art will be making field-recordings in an open studio on location during the ten days of the festival.
Installations by:
Artificiel, Aernoudt Jacobs, Cléa Coudsi, Eric Herbin, Stijn Demeulenaere, Rolf Aamot
Performances by:
Søs Gunver Ryberg, Fish&Fowl v/ Juliana Hodkinson, Niels Rønsholdt, Rune Søchting, Artificiel, Per Magnus Lindborg, Jana Winderen, Maia Urstad, Robert Pietrowicz, Hanna Hartman, Anna Zaradny, Erik Bünger, Tuomas Toivinen, Dorit Chrysler
