On June 7, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (T-B A21), the Vienna based foundation for contemporary art founded by Francesca von Habsburg, will inaugurate The Morning Line – its most ambitious public art project to date. A four-day Festival for Contemporary Music Composition featuring 27 sound artists and nine new compositions, specially conceived for the pavilion’s sonic architecture, will kick off The Morning Line’s six months residency on Schwarzenbergplatz.
Conceived by the New York based artist Matthew Ritchie as an inherently collaborative structure, The Morning Line is an interdisciplinary platform where artists, architects, engineers, physicists, sound designers and musicians each contribute their own specialized information to create a new form: a mutable structure, with multiple expressions and narratives intertwining in its physical structure, projected video and innovative spatialized sound environments. Ritchie teamed up with design innovators Aranda/Lasch, the Music Research Centre of York University and Arup AGU to create the next leap in a fully programmable
three-dimensional sound space. Based on advances in research on crystalline structures, parametric design and fractal construction units, The Morning Line is a fully scalable space; its innovative structure can adopt every configuration, it is
transportable from site to site and acts as a performance space.
THE MORNING LINE – An Interdisciplinary Pavilion Project
The Morning Line – an imposing 10 meter high and 20 meter long pavilion, built of 20 tons of black coated aluminum cut into drawings of our ever expanding universe – was developed during a 3-year research period and is challenging architectural convention: The team of collaborators has designed the first semasiographic building, a non-linear architectural language, based on fractal geometry and parametric design that directly expresses its content through its visual and sonic structure.
Sound Architecture
Beyond its architectural configuration, the artist conceived of the pavilion’s sonic identity. The Morning Line is equipped with fifty speakers, controlled by an advanced multispatial audio system, designed by the Music Research Centre of York University. As a result, the scope of the structure itself and its novel spatialization software support a new form of electronic sound composition – fully three-dimensional sound written for and performed in this new acoustic space. T-B A21 has invited an international group of composers whose work lies beyond the boundaries and the programming of traditional concert halls or music clubs for that matter, to open up this forum to experimentation with different approaches.
Soundfestival und Symposium zu THE MORNING LINE VIENNA
As The Morning Line continues to travel the world as a platform for contemporary music, and within its mandate to encourage and support the production of innovative composition wherever it tours, T-B A21 has appointed the internationally renowned, Austrian musician and sound artist Franz Pomassl to act as a guest curator for the project’s presentation in Vienna. New sonic works by Alexei Borisov (Russia), Christian Fennesz (Austria), Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen (Finland), Carsten Nicolai (Germany), Zsolt Olejnik (Hungary), Finnbogi Petursson (Iceland), Terre Thaemlitz (USA), Zavoloka (Ukraine) and Franz Pomassl himself will be premiered in the context of the Festival for Spatial Sound and Advanced Music Composition at the Schwarzenbergplatz, Vienna 1 from Wednesday June 8 until Saturday June 11, 2011.
Festival Program
Live Acts, Performances & Premieres
June 7, 8 pm – Christian Fennesz, Zavoloka, Carsten Nicolai
June 8, 7 pm – Yasunao Tone, Terre Thaemlitz, Franz Pomassl
June 9, 7 pm – Peter Zinovieff, Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen, Zavoloka
June 10, 7 pm – Florian Hecker, Carsten Nicolai, Finnbogi Petursson /& Ghostigital
June 11, 12 am – Matinée Batuhan Bozkurt, Erdem Helvacioglu, Mehmet Can Özer, Bryce Dessner
June 11, 7 pm – Zsolt Olejnik, Cevdet Erek, Alexei Borisov, Christian Fennesz
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary
Founded in Vienna in 2002 by Francesca von Habsburg, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary is committed to supporting the production of contemporary art and is actively involved in commissioning and disseminating unconventional projects.
Committed to supporting the production of contemporary art and actively engaged in commissioning and disseminating unconventional projects that defy traditional disciplinary categorizations, T-B A21 sustains a far-reaching regional and
international orientation and explores modes or presentation that are intended to broaden the viewers’ perception. T-B A21 has been building up a reputation in the field of interdisciplinary practice through numerous workshops and the implementation of a number of innovative commissions, The Morning Line being the most ambitious to date.
New Music Commissions
Alexei Borisov – Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen – Christian Fennesz – Carsten Nicolai – Zsolt Olejnik – Finnbog i Petursson – Franz Pomassl – Terre Thaemlitz – Zavoloka,
curated by Franz Pomassl
Further Music Commissions
Carl Michael von Hausswolf – Yasunao Tone – Jana Winderen – Peter Zinovieff, curated by Russell Haswell
Batuhan Bozkurt – Cevdet Erek – Erdem Helvacioglu – Mehmet Can Özer, curated by Cihat Askın, Melih Fereli, Kamran Ince
Bryce Dessner with David Sheppard und / and Evan Ziporyn – Lee Ranaldo – Thom Willems, curated by Bryce Dessner
Mark Fellmit with Roc Jiménez de Cisneros – Bruce Gilbert – Florian Hecker – Chris Watson, curated by Florian Hecker
Jónsi & Alex – Ghostigital, curated by T-B A21