Chamber opera – June
30th,
July 1st
and 8th,
8:30 p. m., additional performance on July
13th, 8:30 p. m.
A chamber opera in three
acts turns a historical experiment of the polymath Hermann
von Helmholtz (1821
– 1894) into a unique performance. Two years ago the artist,
composer and researcher Jan-Peter E.R.
Sonntag developed the three-hour
chamber opera SINUS
especially for the Tieranatomische Theater’s spectacular
neoclassical architecture. SINUS is performed as an extension to
Sonntag’s installation SYNTH, on show at the TA T until July 15th.
It transforms the rotunda, the library and the anatomy theatre into
a huge sounding body.
Taking Hermann
von Helmholtz' seminal publication “On
the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of
Music” (1863) as a foundation, the artist investigates the
technical and intellectual origins of modern art and music. Based on
Helmholtz’ experiments, Sonntag and his
team developed electro-acoustic instruments which will be played
live in SINUS,
particularly the “Apparat zur künstlichen Zusammensetzung von
Vocalklängen”, a vowel synthesizer dating back to the 1850s!
The technical roots of dismantling and synthesizing sound and the
phantasm of the pure sine wave are in the centre of this
exploration. For Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag sound art is spacial art
that addresses the percipient's whole body.
The exhibition and
installation SYNTH
shows a multifaceted collection of sounding instruments and objects,
pictures and photos, scores, circuits and acoustic transducers in
seven rooms of the Tieranatomische Theater – drawing a line from
19th
centuries' physiology to Neue Musik, media theory of the 20th
century and contemporary experimental music. The objects come from
the historical collection of musical instruments of the Charité,
from Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag’s collections as well as his and
Sebastian Döring’s research on a synthesizer of the media
theorist Friedrich A. Kittler.
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag
and Felix Sattler invite experts and public audiences to
discussions, workshops and events about the objects and instruments.
At the same time
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag’s radio opera RUNDFUNK AETERNA – a work
commissioned by Documenta 14 – will be broadcasted world-wide. For
RUNDFUNK AETERNA Sonntag developed special circuits, too, which make
it possible for the artist to receive radio just as the visionaries
Marinetti, Arnheim and Brecht.
SINUS
– Redux 2017
A
chamber opera in 3 acts / 3 rooms / 3 sound architectures will be
performed live on three days in June and July.
The
classical anatomy theatre will be transformed into a “Rausch-Körper”
(body of noise). The
chamber opera leads the customers through different aesthetic worlds
of sound experience and its historical, technical and physiological
roots: Laboratories of original and strange instruments, a
historical reading and listening room, the foggy sound spaces of the
natural scientist John Tyndall, experiences of noise.
More
Information on SINUS on www.sonntag-sinus.net.
TicketsAdmission:
EUR 20 / 10 EUR (concession) + booking fee at Eventbrite,
tickets
at the evening box-office, ticket reservation via e-Mail
tat.hzk@hu-berlin.de
or
via telephone +49 (0) 30 2093 46625 (Tue. till Sat., 2 – 6 p. m.), SYNTH by Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag – free entrance (Tuesday – Saturday, 2 – 6 p. m.)
Creators and Performers:
Jowita Figwer (dancer), Lars Gühlcke (experimenter, musician),
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag (experimenter, musician), music recordings:
Robin Hayward (microtonal tuba), Ekkhard Windrich (violin) and
others.
A
Co-production of the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik at
Humboldt-Universität of Berlin and Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag.
Supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Curator: Felix Sattler,
Production: Lars Gühlcke.