Guest artists

Guest artists #

Shuoxin Tan and Joseph Baader #

April - May 2025

Shuoxin Tan was born in Beijing, now she is living and working as a freelance composer and sound artist in Cologne. Since April 2020 she studies Epistemic Media at Institute for Music and Media Düsseldorf with Prof. Julian Rohrhuber and composer Marcus Schmickler. Her research currently focuses on Lacanian topology, algorithmic acoustics and mathematical formalization. How to apply “purloined” theory and knowledge into artistic practice is her curiosity. She approaches and works between composition and improvisation, which often happens in specific space, intertwined with the exploration of physical movement and auditory perception.

Influenced by Lacanian topology, namely the Borromean rings, she has founded the network-music ensemble and research group [ _ _ _ ] together with Jia Liu in Karlsruhe and Song Li in London. The ensemble started during the Covid lockdown in November 2020 and developed a collaborative algorithmic network-music performance system from scratch, adopting the programming language SuperCollider. Their research and practice embody the new form of computer music performance with theoretical thinking. Her work has been released on labels such as SUPERPANG, Infant Tree and Zoomin’ Night, compilations on labels Sub Rosa and Noise of Cologne.

Joseph Baader is a sound artist and composer based in Düsseldorf. In his work he explores algorithms, rooms, surfaces and mechanisms of the everyday onto their musical and poetic potential. Joseph studied Music and Text, Music Informatics and Visual Music at the Institute for Music and Media Düsseldorf (2014-2021) and Electroacoustic Composition at the Sibelius Academy Helsinki (2018-2019). In Finland he initiated together with local artists the Potential Difference Collective (2018-2019), which organized and played several open jams and performances in the Helsinki area (Asbestos Art Space, Helsinki Music Centre). As a media artist, he is part of the Cologne based theater collective KRUX, which has won the Kunstsalon Theaterpreis 2019. He plays electronic music in various ensembles and is part of the duo honey washed and Trio Wellenbad.

Since 2017 he regularly exhibits his sound installations at the Cologne sound art space LTK4 – Klangbasierte Künste Köln. His radio pieces and electroacoustic compositions have been played at ARD Hörspieltage, Sentralen Oslo, Sonic Matter Festival Zürich, Ensemblia Mönchengladbach, Neuer Kunstraum Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. He was composer in residence at Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm (2019) and currently stays for a three month residency at Cité Internationale des Arts Paris.

Casper Schipper #

February - March 2025

Casper Schipper (NL, 1984) is an electronic musician and software developer. He studied electronic music composition at the Institute of Sonology (Royal Conservatoire in The Hague). His work is centered on developing an interactive and low-level approach to sound synthesis, which has resulted in a live-coding language called CISP. CISP does not create sound by remodeling instruments, analog electronics or physical models into programs, but allows the user to employ generic compositional and computational methods to explore sound, as amplitude changing over time. Casper is a board member of The Game of Life Foundation, a non-profit organization which manages the world’s first mobile Wave Field Synthesis loudspeaker system.

He has also assisted in the technical realization of many musical projects for a wide variety of composers and collectives including Aoi+Esteban, Willem Boogman, Rozalie Hirs, the DK Projection & Ángel Arranz, VocaalLab/Silbersee, Calefax, Slagwerk Den Haag, Emmanuel Flores, Maria Alejandra Castro Espejo, Ivo Bol, Zbigniew Wolny and Machiel Spaan. He is administrating officer for the Research Catalogue which is an online documentation platform for artistic research projects provided by the Society for Artistic Research.

Constanza Piña #

October - November 2024

Constanza Piña (Curicó, 1984) Artist and researcher, focused on electronic and sound experimentation. Her work explores noise as a phenomenon that encompasses sound, social, cultural, political and spiritual dimensions. Her practice blends contemporary technologies with ancient techniques through speculative narratives. She creates analog synthesizers, textile antennas, and experimental EMF amplifiers. From a pseudoscientific perspective, Constanza develops the concept of electronic witchcraft, seeing electronics as a bridge to connect the physical world with intangible energy from multiple spectral fields.

Her work includes installations, performances, concerts, as well as collaborations, workshops, event organization and the creation of archives. She has held exhibitions, concerts, workshops, and discussions throughout Latin America, Europe, the United States, Canada, and Asia. Since 2013, she has been researching on prehispanic ancestral computing systems, materialized in the piece “Khipu // Pre-Hispanic Electrotextile Computer,” awarded at Ars Electronica Prix 2020. This research fuses speculation and Andean science fiction to vindicate ancestral knowledge underrated by hegemonic scientific sources. Active in the underground experimental music scene since 2010 under the pseudonym Corazón de Robota, using only DIY synthesizers that she creates and builds herself, she explores the field of audible and inaudible frequencies, psycho-physical perceptions of sound and the rhythmic dimensions of noise. Founder of the Technofeminist meeting Cyborgrrrls (Mexico City 2017-2024), Constanza contributes to the creation of non- institutional spaces based on mutual care, collective pleasure and technological subversion. She currently works as an independent artist and teaches at her project/school Non Binary Electronic Berlin.

Adam Pultz Melbye #

June - July 2024

Adam Pultz Melbye is a double bass player, composer, and improviser working in the field of acoustic and electronic sound. Adam’s work spans live performance, sound installation, sound for dance, theatre, film, multimedia, sculpture, algorithmic design, and instrument building. They have performed and exhibited work in Europe, Australia, the US, and Japan, while appearing on close to 50 albums. Adam often performs with semi-autonomous feedback systems, such as the FAAB (feedback-actuated augmented bass)—an instrument created in collaboration with Halldòr Ùlfarsson. Adam holds a practic-led PhD in music technology from SARC, Queen’s University Belfast.

www.adampultz.com

Olivia Jack #

April - May 2024

Olivia Jack is a programmer and artist who works frequently with open-source software, cartography, live coding, and experimental interfaces. She is the developer of browser-based art tools including Hydra (live-coded video synthesizer), PIXELSYNTH, and LiveLab (peer2peer media router). Her live audiovisual sets explore algorithmic representations of unpredictable and chaotic systems, and writing software as a messy and ephemeral process.

https://ojack.xyz/

Farzaneh Nouri #

December 2023 - January 2024

Farzaneh Nouri is a musician, researcher, and sound artist. Interested in experimental approaches to sound, science, and technology, she explores various disciplines such as electroacoustic music composition, computer science, and linguistics. Her recent pieces investigate complex systems, natural algorithms, and human-machine interaction. The focus of her current research is on artificial intelligence methods in the framework of free improvisation.

https://farzanehnouri.com

Project

Non-representational data in machine improvisation #

In the context of machine improvisation, non-representational data refers to data that is not directly tied to musical representations. The research project speculates the aesthetic potentiality of non-representational data within computing processes in the framework of machine improvisation. The objective of this inquiry is to re-think standard approaches to musical agent design, in order to instantiate novel processes and to explore what aesthetics, possibilities, and new forms of collaboration such systems can offer. The use of nonrepresentational data in machine improvisation can potentially allow for more diverse and speculative approaches to creating music, breaking away from conventional compositional methods and exploring new forms of expression in free improvisation.