With TEN, Seanaps Festival celebrates its anniversary edition from September 17–20, 2026 in Leipzig. It takes inspiration from iconic short film «Powers of Ten» (1977) by Ray and Charles Eames—a landmark of visual experimentation that mapped the universe through the rhythm of the number ten to reveal the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
Celebrating a decade of artistic exchange, this anniversary edition unites an international network to explore sound as a scalable medium—from the microcosm of the human body to the macrocosm of technology, ecology, and collective experience. TEN translates this principle into a diverse program of concerts, performances, interventions, installations, a special night program, a workshop and Seanaps RadioLAB. By mapping significant contemporary positions in experimental music, art, and culture, the festival creates vital temporary spaces for shared listening experiences.
THURSDAY FESTIVAL OPENING
17.09. ⚬ 18:00-23:00 ⚬ Kunstraum Ortloff
The festival opens at Kunstraum Ortloff with the installation Operation Theater by AMOS PELED. Drawing on medical technologies and artificial organs, Peled creates a poetic yet uncanny choreography of sound, movement and corporeal imagery. Detached from their biological function, organs become autonomous protagonists within an immersive audiovisual composition.
The opening will also feature a live performance by electronic live musician and media artist SHANNON SOUNDQUIST. Her compositions and live performances move fluidly between ambient, noise and mental techno.
RADIOLAB
18.09. - 20.09. ⚬ 12:00–17:00 ⚬ Luru Kino
Seanaps Festival RadioLAB will be broadcasting live from Luru Kino and will accompany the festival with its own programme from Friday to Sunday. It will feature pieces from the current open call, radio plays, artist talks and concerts that bring together international artistic perspectives with the experimental music scene in Leipzig and Saxony, thereby providing an additional platform for exchange beyond the festival’s physical venues.
FRIDAY CONCERTS
18.09. ⚬ 18:00-23:00 ⚬ Westflügel
The percussionist BEN BENNETT opens the Westflügel concerts on Friday. Working within a radically minimalist and process-based practice, Bennett focusses on discovering idiosyncratic and emergent sound structures using objects that function as membranophones and idiophones. His performances are distinguished by an intense physical presence and a deep attentiveness to the sonic possibilities of each gesture.
The evening continues with FEU FOU’s hypnotic compositions combining self-built instruments, fractured drum machines and ghostly vocal fragments. Moving between experimental folk-punk and dreamlike dreamcore, the group creates an idiosyncratic sonic landscape balancing intimacy with unsettling tension.
PAS EST LE SAUT is a duo by percussionist Alexis Degrenier and hurdy-gurdy player Yann Gourdon exploring the perception of time through sustained acoustic sound. Working with dense textures, resonant drones and subtle shifts in duration, they create immersive sonic environments where tension, saturation and fragile transformations unfold with hypnotic precision.
Gugulethu Duma, performing as DUMAMA, is a musician, composer, sound poet and producer whose artistic practice examines and challenges archaic modes of representation within South African and broader African sound and performance cultures. Her work moves between traditional and speculative futures, weaving together voice, memory and ritual into immersive sonic narratives. Her voice functions simultaneously as instrument, archive and vessel of remembrance, interlacing with the Xhosa string instrument uhadi, live looping, field recordings and subtle electronic textures. Together with drummer and composer LUKAS AKINTAYA and pianist and producer ÀBÁSE, their performance bridges ancestral knowledge and contemporary experimental music.
SATURDAY DAY PROGRAM
19.09. ⚬ 12:00-17:00 ⚬ various locations
On Saturday, sound artist LAURE BOER is giving a hands-on introduction workshop to the world of DIY electronic sound. Simple speakers, piezo contact microphones, and electroacoustic instruments will be built while exploring how different materials – wood, metal, cardboard, and plastic – can produce unique sounds through vibration and resonance. No prior experience is needed – just curiosity, open ears, and a desire to experiment with sound. Open to everyone aged 8 and over.
We’re back on the grounds of Leipzig's Alte Baumwollspinnerei, transforming the site into a landscape for listening and encounter.
On the lawn outside Luru Kino the interactive installation Baden by STUDIO ONDERSTROOM invites visitors to experience sound while lying down and engaging with it through the entire body. Whispering flutes, fragile voices and subtle resonances create a space of stillness, attentiveness and deceleration, encouraging audiences to experience listening as a physical and contemplative practice.
SATURDAY CONCERTS
19.09. ⚬ 18:00-23:00 ⚬ Westflügel
The evening concerts will be opened by Germán Gabriel García alias GGG with an audiovisual live performance, which centers the interplay between the sonic universe of the amplified trumpet and digital sound processing, combined with audio-responsive visual elements.
The Belgian duo SANS ÂGE create dense, feverish sonic textures using self-built instruments alongside trumpet and violin. Breath, body and material operate as equal components of a single expanded instrument, dissolving conventional boundaries between performer, instrument and sound.
JULI DEÁK explores the expressive possibilities of flute and saxophone through subtle shifts of breath, resonance and tone. Rooted in classical training while embracing improvisation, her performances unfold with quiet precision, creating spacious sonic landscapes where stillness and movement exist in delicate balance.
SHEVEK IYAPO is an open-ended art project by musician and author VINCENT BABABOUTILABO – a growing, fluid structure, merging music, poetry, dance, imagery and voice. Joined by intersectional sound artist JOJO SCHÜTT, bassist TINO RIBEIRO and break dancer TALAL, the performance reflects contemporary social realities while opening political spaces for listening, encouraging audiences to engage critically with questions of identity, community and resistance.
SATURDAY NIGHT PROGRAM
19.09. ⚬ 23:00-04:00 ⚬ Spxlxnkx
Following Saturday's concert programme, the festival continues with an experimental club night featuring live performances at Spxlxnkx. SAX TAPE fuse saxophone, tape loops and driving beats into hypnotic experimental trip-hop, ACID PLACID combine obsessive vocals, electronic sequences and textured sound worlds that oscillate between dance music, spoken word and social critique, while POPON creates immersive sonic landscapes using voice, small acoustic instruments, found objects and electronics, balancing fragility and intensity through exploratory live performance. Together, they blur the boundaries between live concert, club set and sound art.
SUNDAY DAY CONCERTS
20.09. ⚬ 14:00-17:00 ⚬ tba.
Sunday afternoon brings together three distinct live concerts, moving between experimental songwriting, electroacoustic textures, hypnotic rhythms, and poetic minimalism:
TAÏKH opens the afternoon with a live set that weaves together small objects, sampled field recordings and immersive drone textures into an exploratory sonic journey.
RADIO HITO presents a deeply personal song cycle based on Claude Royet-Journoud’s poetry. Using voice, soundfonts, prepared instruments, FM radios, and electronic keyboards, her compositions are reduced to their essential elements—creating performances of remarkable clarity, quiet intensity, and emotional depth.
Closing the series, TAROUG blends organic and electronic percussion, analogue synthesizers, and hypnotic vocals into an immersive live experience. Rooted in both the Tunisian desert and contempo
SUNDAY CONCERTS
20.09. ⚬ 18:00-23:00 ⚬ Westflügel
Sunday is dedicated to listening as a sensory and embodied experience.
The duo HAEDONG LEE & YIDAN KIM create contemporary ceremonies through the interaction of sound, performance and scent compositions, translating East Asian traditions into present-day artistic practice. Their work invites audiences into immersive environments where listening extends beyond hearing alone and becomes a multisensory act of perception.
Following this, TAKAKO MINEKAWA presents her distinctive combination of voice, synthesisers and delicate object instruments. Glass cylinders, miniature recorders and electronic sounds give rise to weightless sonic landscapes that move effortlessly between pop, improvisation and experimental music.
The festival concludes with the duo ROL, whose intimate ambient compositions evolve from voices, viola, synthesisers and intricate sound design. Constantly shifting and unfolding, their music places vulnerability and transformation at its centre, bringing the tenth anniversary edition to a contemplative close.
Throughout the concert programme, the Westflügel bar will host drinks and DJ sets before and between performances.
