“‘(Cathartic) Singers’: CTM Festival, Berlin, 24 January – 2 February 2025”, Cyclic Defrost

CTM Opening, Silent Green Kuppelhalle, CTM Festival 2025 Berlin. Photo: Frankie Casillo

 

For its 26th edition CTM Festival did not have a unifying theme, although it did unveil a new multi-year thematic thread “Resynthesizing the Traditional”. This concerns how artists are approaching and remaking “traditional” practices—songs, instruments, tuning systems—with contemporary tools, production techniques and to address current issues. This was evident in several performances during the festival, alongside a week-long lab that featured several notable artists such as bela and Nakul Krishnamurthy, which was showcased on the festival’s final day.

 Read the full review here.

“‘From behind the strobe lights and into the spotlight’: Thúrc Tinh by Animistic Beliefs + Jeisson Drenth”, Cyclic Defrost

My review of the premier of Animistic Beliefs + Jeisson Drenth’s new performance collaboration at Muzeikgebouw Amsterdam published in Cyclic Defrost.

Animistic Beliefs + Jeisson Drenth, “Thức Tỉnh”, Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, 10 January 2025. Photo: Sabine van Nistelrooij.

 

Early in the new year, FIBER and The Rest Is Noise premiered a new multimedia collaboration by electronic music duo Animistic Beliefs and media artist Jeisson Drenth. On Friday 10 January, Thúrc Tinh was welcomed by enthusiastic supporters at Amsterdam’s landmark concert hall complex, Muzeikgebouw.

As the theatre lights dim, I hear forests sounds: birds, wind in trees, water bubbling over rocks. A masked figure emerges from the wings to the sound of a thudding drum. Dressed in black, the figure crouches and scurries tentatively across the stage as the rhythm picks up, punctuated with rasping growls. The creature  grasps a pail and a large brush as a wide screen over the stage fades in to project a view from above, framing a long white sheet on the floor. As the rhythm becomes more complex, Linh Luu, part of the duo Animistic Beliefs, begins to write a calligraphic script on the floor in wide performative gestures. On the screen above, subtitles provide a translation in English as each pictograph word is inked: Trauma, Discovery, Ancestry, Growth. When the script is complete two costumed assistants appear at the side of the stage to bring the sheet up to the wall, stage left, where it hangs as a banner overseeing the rest of the performance.

Read the full article here.

“Teleconnections: On Cycles of Media, Climate and Politics”, Berlin Art Link.

Tega Brain & Sam Lavigne: ‘Media Cycle,’ 2022, digital print // © Tega Brain & Sam Lavigne, courtesy the artist

Artist, researcher and curator Sybille Neumeyer recently opened the group show ‘Teleconnections’ at D21 Kunstraum Leipzig, as part of her long-term artistic research into the narratives and aesthetics of climate crises. The term “teleconnections,” often used in climate science to describe links between distant climate zones, is reimagined here to explore the interplay between climates, media and politics. It also nods to “telecommunication”—emphasizing how media shapes socio-political and bio-cultural atmospheres. The multimedia contributions by 14 international artists examine how media-driven climate narratives (re)produce power dynamics. They critically address topics such as greenwashing, CO2 cycles, colonial data systems, activism and energy infrastructures, often taking eco-feminist, speculative, poetic or humorous perspectives. We spoke with Neumeyer about the pressing concepts behind some of the works in ‘Teleconnections’ and about how art can become a transformative agent in these cycles. 

 Read on Berlin Art Link.