DIANE BARBÉ
21.09. • 22:00 – 04:00 • Spxlxnkx • Night program
Diane Barbé explores the intersections of ecology and experimental music, working with field recording as much as with synthesis, flutes and acoustic instruments. Her work delves into the manifold practices of musicking, crafting acoustic instruments with salvaged materials, developing ensembles of non-musicians in various countries and holding space for alternative music education. Her latest album came out in 2023 with First Terrace Records, featuring the Alien Kin, a growing ensemble of handmade whistles, flutes, clay vessels and sound makers, used to explore the playful spaces of interspecies communication, non-standardized tunings, and collective synchronisation. In 2022, Diane released the field recording album “a conference of critters”, recorded in Thailand during the pandemic, with the label forms of minutiae. Diane collaborates with Laure Boer on the radical improvisation duo Arbore that opens onto drone, noise, lullabies, and technoid evocations of witchcraft. She has performed solo in experimental music festivals and venues like INA-GRM Paris, Nachtdigital and Documenta15 in Germany, AADK Spain, Ankali in Prague, and Maerz Musik in Berlin; she has taught in higher-education institutions like the Conservatoire de Musique de Marseille, Hasso Plattner Institute, Hildesheim Arts University, Universität der Künste Berlin and Technische Universität Berlin.
She has created environmental music instruments, sound pieces and installations at Floating University Berlin, Grabowsee in Brandenburg, the Raddusch biosphere in the Spreewald, the St Marthe quarry in Marseille, Global Forest in the Black Forest. Her search for sonic oddities and ecologies have led her to explore the northern plateaus of the Atacama in Chile, after a residency at Tsonami in 2024, the thawing permafrost of the Finnish Arctic, during a stay at the biological research station of Kilpisjärvi, and the fragile tropical depths of the Bolivian Amazon, always focusing on listening as the elementary practice of sounding.
The Alien Kin
21.09. • 14:00 – 17:00 • Spxlxnkx • Workshop
The Alien Kin is an ongoing research and performance project facilitated by composer, field recordist and sound artist Diane Barbé. Using simple handmade instruments (whistles, flutes, ocarinas, percussions), it proposes to collectively develop synchronicity, to explore nonverbal communication, to play around with other, non-human voices, deeply practicing our ability to listen, to imitate, and to respond. Some of the oldest “music” instruments we know may in fact be imitation devices, made to call birds and deer and become invisible in the great forests. Most rhythms that structure ancient and current music have their roots in the syncopated stridulations of insects and amphibians, whose voices manifest diurnal and seasonal cycles. The Alien Kin proposes to explore these themes – collective music, nonverbal communication, DIY instruments, biomimicry, synchronicity– through group workshops and performances. The workshops usually last about three hours and cover a range of vocal and breathing activities, listening exercises, and collective composition practices. We engage with wind and percussion instruments made of ceramics, river cane, bamboo, logs, copper, brass, and other reclaimed materials. Workshops can lead to short performances amplified with 3-5 microphones, for radio broadcasts or live settings. Ideal group size is between 7-17 participants.
Photo © INA
