SAT 24 March 7.30pm | £8 adv / £10 otd

Saturday 24 March | doors 7.30pm – start 8pm | £8 advance / £10 otd  BUY TICKETS

Corpora Aliena is pleased to present a concert of analogue and digital experimental music performances based on the theme of ‘dreams and shadows’. The evening brings together composers who produce subdued sound textures and thoughtful sonic meditations, and features; Liz Helman, and who will be presenting tracks from her recently released album ‘Daylight Dreaming’;  the Paris-based composer Christine Webster, who will create a mix between improvised abstractions and remix some of the sound elements from her new album ‘Iceberg the Drift …’; and Bernhard Living will perform a new composition and multimedia work, ‘The Metaphysics of Colour’, that was made in collaboration with the Russian artist and photographer Marinesca Marinesca.

One of the aims of Corpora Aliena is to showcase artists who work across a wide range of creative disciplines, and the evening will include experimental films and shorts that have been produced by the composers. There is also the opportunity  to see a new film by the internationally acclaimed Russian artist Olga Fedorova, and we’ll be screening her ‘Outlaw Compound’ that she made in collaboration with the Belgian musician Yannick Franck.

‘Outlaw Compound’ (Colour / Belgium / 2018 / Duration: 04.53 / Music by Yannick Franck)

Outlaw Compound is a collaborative AV project between the internationally acclaimed digital artist Olga Fedorova and multifaceted musician Yannick Franck.

It is inspired by tiki culture, exotica, magick and other manifestations of modern escapist tendencies. The fascination of the industrialised world for a widely fantasised state of primitive innocence that it perceived as a lost paradise.

The first album ‘New Primitive’ was recently released on British-French label ZamZamRec.

‘Light [Drone]’ (2014 / Duration: 03.07)

‘Peripheral’ (2007) / Duration: 04.41)

‘Imprint’  (2013) / Duration 01.00)

Liz Helman’s short experimental films, made in London between 2007 and 2014, visually explore notions of dislocation, memory and displacement

‘Untitled Dream (Homage to Erik Satie)’ (Colour / 2018 / Duration: 10.20 / Music by Bernhard Living)

‘Untitled Dream (Homage to Erik Satie)’ is one of several digital video collaborations between the Russian artist and photographer Marinesca Marinesca and the English composer and Bernhard Living. It originated from two separate dreams that the artists had on the same night, and which was inspired by the music of the French composer Erik Satie

‘Fukushima Days’ (Colour / France / 2012 / Duration: 26’10 / Music Composition and Video Editing by Christine Webster and Rutt Etraby)

Fukushima Days is an experimental audio-video project created after Fukushima’s nuclear disaster on March 11th 2011 in Japan. Footage has been manipulated with Rutt Etra and Super 8 FX effects by graphic artist Kantoh, and edited to fit with the sound work previously created in 2011 by Christine Webster. The whole project confines to a dark and oppressive feeling but not without a sense of tragic beauty – and is a clear support to Fukushima’s endless victims, a warning about the worldwide permanent nuclear threat we have to cope with.

Olga Fedorova (b. 1980) was born in Moscow, Russia and currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.  She received her M.A. in painting from ENSAV, Brussels.

Her works and projects have been the subject of solo and group exhibition in galleries and museums across Europe.  Most recently, her work has been included in group shows at Annka Kultys Gallery, London and in the exhibition Escaping the Digital Unease (curated by Donenico Quaranta) at Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland.  In 2016, the artist presented a solo show, The Inevitability of a Strange World, at Liebaert Projects in Kortrijk, Belgium, as well as a virtual solo exhibition at offspace.xyz.  Fedorova’s work has also been included in group shows at leading European galleries, including: In De Ruimte, Ghent; Pulsar, Antwerp; Russiantearoom Gallery, Paris.  Fedorova’s video works have been included in virtual exhibitions for The Wrong Biennale, DaDa Club Online, Felt Zine, and blockedart.com.

Yannick Franck (b. 1981) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. He is a vocalist, an electronic musician and a performance artist.

Franck is the main curator of the left-field music label Idiosyncratics, plays in duo Orphan Swords with Pierre De Mûelenaere and solo as Raum. He recently launched AV project Outlaw Compound together with digital artist Olga Fedorova.

He regularly works as a composer and a sound designer for dance, theatre and films.

He runs the nsnwrdsnsgls podcast on Los Angeles based website The Brvtalist.

Franck mainly focuses on the exploration of idiosyncratic musical realms through the treatment of sources such as vocals, electronic instruments and field recordings. His music is often described as trance-inducing.

In the past, Franck has been a member of bands Idiosyncrasia and Y.E.R.M.O., with guitar player Xavier Dubois and drummer Jason Van Gulick. With whom have collaborated with artists Gast Bouschet and Nadine Hilbert on a number of projects. They created soundtracks for their installation Collision Zone, held at the Pavilion of Luxembourg, Venice Biennial 2009.

Since many years, Franck works with South African artist Wendy Morris on a regular basis. He has composed music for her animation films, video works and installations.

He has composed soundtracks for Fabrice Murgia /Artara, Chantal Yzermans/Radical Low, Olivia Carrère, Karl Van Welden / United Planets, Michela Silvestrin & Giovanna Rovedo (IT), Karel Verhoeven, Mary Sherman (US),  Michel Couturier, Jan Peeters & Geert Ooms, Benoit Pierre (FR), Danse en L’R (FR) and many others while Orphan Swords recently provided a live soundtrack for Belgian fashion designer Walter Van Beirendonck.

His music has been released on many labels worldwide.

He has performed in venues and festivals such as Artefact Festival (BE), Performatik (BE), Issue Project Room (New York, USA), MUDAM (Luxembourg, LU), Philharmonie du Luxembourg (Luxembourg, LU), Young Arts Biennial (Moscow, RU), European Performance Art Festival (Warsaw, PL), Instants Chavirés (Paris, FR), Ausland (Berlin, DE), Electronic Church (Berlin, DE), Goethe Institut (Boston, US), Eastern Bloc (Montreal, CA), Sector 2337 (Chicago, US), Baby Castles (New York, US), Q-O2 (Brussels, BE), Bozar Electronic Arts Festival (Brussels, BE), Ateliers Claus (Brussels, BE), interactive Media Art Laboratory (Brussels, BE),..

Liz Helman (b. 1961) was born in London, England, where  she continues to live and work. She is self-taught and with no formal training as a composer.

Her current album, Daylight Dreaming, is available on Montreal label, Kohlenstoff Records.

As a multi-disciplinary artist, Helman has always had an interest in ambient music and sound art as a form of expression. Her work, both visual and sonic, is a response to place and environment. Sensitive to how these energies make her feel, she is interested in the subliminal and sonic exploration of these experiences.  By walking the streets, and experiencing different levels of sounds, layers and textures she always begins her process with field recordings before studio intervention. She very much likes working experimentally, following the thread of the sound to its ultimate destination, which she likes to think of as sonic alchemy.

She signed to Kohlenstoff Records, a Montreal-based label and arts-collective in 2015 – and has performed internationally, including a short residency in 2017 with Irena Tomazin as part of ZVO.ČI.TI so.und.ing DUO, CONA | institute for contemporary arts processing, Ljubjlana, Slovenia. Sound pieces have been heard at New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2014 and video works have been shown in London and abroad including: MUSLAB Festival, Mexico, 2014; Millenium Film Workshop, New York, 2014; LAB Film Festival at Hackney Wicked, London 2014; Bermuda Triangle Test Engineers benefit for Resonance FM, 2014; LOOP Video Festival, Barcelona 2011; Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, part of festival shorts with Barbara Hammer, BFI, London, 2011; FrinGe Film Fest 2011; Wunderland at tactileBosch, Cardiff 2011; Supermarket Stockholm Art Fair 2011; Whitechapel Gallery Open Screenings, 2010; Rich Mix Cultural Centre, London, UK, 10; Counted Weekend Festival, Roundhouse, London, 2010; Portobello Film Festival 2008; Visions in the Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust 2008; WAVE [Hybridity, Identity & the Self] – Ewha Arts Center, M-Post Gallery, Seoul, Korea, 2006.

Independent curation projects include Facing You, a photography exhibition for Fringe! – Gay Film Festival, 2012; Roma London in 2010; Before.After.Now – Visions of Iraq – a show on Iraqi Art Deluxe Gallery, Hoxton, London 2003. And under the banner of [noplaceprojects*], the exhibitions RePlace in 2009 and no place in 2008. She also has appeared as an Andy Warhol in Yason Banal’s installation piece, Last Warhol Stand Inn at Tate Modern’s 10th Anniversary Festival of Independents in 2010.

Bernhard Living (b. 1948) is an experimental music composer, curator and former multi-instrumentalist (playing alto saxophone, bass clarinet snd flute). He was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England – and lives and works in London and Southampton, England. He studied composition with the South African-born composer professor Stanley Glasser at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and philosophy under professors Jonathan Reé and Peter Dews at Middlesex University, London.

As an international musician (1966 – 1992), Living performed with a number of leading composers and musical innovators, including; Karlheinz Stockhausen, Cornelius Cardew, Hugh Davies, Barry Guy and Mike Westbrook. He is a featured soloist on a number of classic jazz, punk and rock albums, including; Mike Westbrook’s Celebration (1967), Release (1968), and Marching Song (1969); Manfred Mann’s Chapter Three (1969) and Chapter Three Volume Two (1970); Barry Guy’s Ode (1972); and Linder Stirling’s Ludus project (1982). The Sunday Times music critic Derek Jewell described Living’s performance style and technique as ‘revolutionary’. He has also given public performances of compositions from the twentieth-century flute repertoire, including; Luciano Berio “Sequenza”, Pierre Boulez “Sonatine for Flute”, John Cage flute-only versions of “Concert for Piano and Orchestra”, “Atlas Eclipticalis”, “Variations I, II, III, IV, V”, Karlheinz Stockhausen “Aus den Sieben Tagen”, “Musik für Flöte”, “In Freundschaft”; and Edgard Varèse “Density 21.5”.

In the role of curator (1993 – 2000), Living was influential in setting up the BN1 project, a Brighton-based autonomous arts organisation. Described as a ‘museum without walls’, BN1 commissioned leading digital and installation artists, including Susan Collins, Tessa Elliott, Anna Heinrich & Leon Palmer, Thomas Köner, Simon Poulter, Michael Petry and Paul Sermon, to produce artworks for both traditional exhibition spaces and for the pubic domain. He has been an active advocate of digital technology, and within this role he has sat on a number of advisory boards, including the Arts Council of England and South East Arts, to help shape policy within the arts and their relationship to new media.

Corpora Aliena (2017 – )

In 2017, Living established a new curatorial project, Corpora Aliena. The aims of the projects are to; to present live experimental music events, film screenings and gallery-based projects; to work with artists from the international community – and to develop ‘creative conduits’ between London and other European cities; to create opportunities for young and emerging composers, musicians, artists and experimental film makers; and to ensure that there is a positive  gender balance  – and to have a high proportion of female composers and musicians taking part in all of Corpora Aliena’s events.

Bernhard Living’s digitally-based compositions have taken minimalistic compositional techniques to what he considers to be their logical conclusion, with his music being characterised by sparse textures, long periods of silence, maximal repetition and minimal variation. The compositions are often devoid of musical elements such as melody, harmony and rhythm, and as an alternative they explore the use of sound colour and sonic textures.

Influences for Living’s work range from the historical avant-garde, including John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse; the Russian avant-garde, Kazimir Malevich, Olga Rozanova and Liubov Popova; American jazz; John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler; American abstract expression and colour-field painting, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Morris Louis; American minimal art, Agnes Martin, Donald Judd and Carl Andre; to contemporary loop-based dance music, particularly techno. In many ways, his music could be considered as an evolved non-dance form of techno, but one that exists within a different cultural context and along a different time continuum.

Bernhard Living’s complete musical output can be found at Bandcamp

Iklectik, London 22.10.2017

Poetronica, Moscow (2016)

Iklectik, London 22.10.2017

Poetronica, Moscow (2016)

Marinesca Marinesca (b. 1977) was born in Moscow, Russia where she currently lives and works. She graduated from the Surikov Institute in painting class, Moscow.

As an artist and photographer, her works and projects have been presented in both solo and group exhibition in galleries in Russia.  Most recently, she had a solo exhibition ‘I Love Moss’ at the ART4 Gallery Moscow,

Marinesca Marinesca lived in the Netherlands for five years. Inspired by the gothic, the works of Dutch masters, the gentle poetry of Goethe and the dark stories of Edgar Allan Poe, the artist created a character, her alter ego, which does not have a specific gender: graceful, autistic androgyne. Imitating in her works the visual techniques of her favourite film directors (Hitchcock, Murnau, Tarkovsky), Marinesca makes an attempt to convey the mood of the “classical subtle world”. According to the artist, she often uses ideas from dreams, which she fixes in sketches for future works. She often works in collaboration with the Russian artist Sergey Pakhomov.

Christine Webster (b. 1962) was born in Karlsruhe, German. She lives and works in Paris, France. She studied electroacoustic music in the late 1980s and worked as a sound engineer in audio post-production studios for French TV and cinema.

Webster’s work as a sound artist, composer and researcher, spans electroacoustic composition, improvisation, films and virtual reality projects.

Much of the sound work Webster produced between 1998 and 2011 was influenced by cinema and literature, giving her experimental sound work an articulated and pseudo narrative aspect, sometimes blurred in a cinematic manner.

In 2006, she began to investigate massive multiplayer virtual reality platforms, pioneering participative real time online concerts and VR interactive multichannel sound installations.

Working as a researcher she is focusing on the potential of ambisonic and binaural technologies when applied to electroacoustic music spatialized in VR scenes. Her project Empty Rooom which was supported by Institut Français and LE CUBE, and has been featured in International art centres and VR galleries in Paris, Lebanon and Singapore.

In 2012, after the release of her experimental film Fukushima Days, Webster’s compositions became more abstract and organic, using the wide range and possibilities of modular synthesis, in a search of more immediate and vibrant expressivity and spatiality. She performs on the experimental and modular scene in around Europe, lincluding CVFREQs, Modularsquare synth battles and  Powwow.

Her latest organic and meditative album Iceberg the Drift was released in January 2018 with the label Sublunar Society.