DO NOT FORGET TO KEEP YOUR MIND CLEAR
19th MÓZG Festival 7—9.09.2023
INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AND VISUAL ARTS FESTIVAL
INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AND VISUAL ARTS FESTIVAL
ZbyZiel (Zbigniew Zieliński) is a painter, photographer and art activist. Since 1990, he has been active in the Bydgoszcz artistic community (including the Bydgoszcz School, Kantorek Gallery, Trytony Artistic Center, F.R.G.S. Mózg, Sanatorium, Czarny Karzeł, 2b+L Gallery).
Magdalena Mellin is a visual artist, performer, painter, songwriter and a poet. She tries to capture the processual and physical aspect of an image in the space of experience, memories and imagination. Her performance, “Scab”, compares the process of healing to the process of metal corrosion. Just like during healing, there is a scab that is being shed that is hiding a clean, new body. So when metals corrode, they purify themselves, disintegrate to their original forms, dropping rust from themselves. The performance speaks about the process of getting used to mourning after the loss of a loved one, about growing into one ’s own loss to fill the space between two separated pieces.
Ido Bukelman is an Israeli guitarist based in Berlin and a multi instrumentalist and composer-improviser. Over the past 15 years he has been on a very expressive musical journey, playing a large number of solo concerts all over Europe and Israel. His work combines elements of modern music, free-jazz and blues with oriental-folk tradition. Bukelman builds and breaks beats and structures, using dis-harmonized sounds, exploring ways to extract an ever-widening range of tones, challenging as well as delicate, from his instruments. He strives for the melodic and the intimate but doesn’t avoid passing through experimental and unfamiliar paths on his journey; If needed, he will dip his hands in fire and blood to find a new song... Alongside his solo work, Bukelman performed and recorded with musicians like Steve Swell, Gunter Sommer Baby, Mark Sanders and Mikolaj Trzaska.
Trytony is a band that was put together at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s in Bydgoszcz.
Regular concerts of the trio: Tomasz Gwinciński - guitar, Sławek Janicki - double bass, Jacek
Buhl - drums, started playing in a club established in 1991 called Świetlica Artystyczna
Trytony, located at Kręta 3 Street. In 1992, the group released an album called "Tańce
Bydgoskie", which is considered to be the first album derived from the so-called "Yass
Stage", even though in 1992 the Yass Stage was not named just yet. In 1994, the group
naturally settled in the newly established Mózg club, where the trio’s second and last album
"Zarys Matematyki Niewinnej" was recorded. In November 2022, 30 years after the release
of "Tańce Bydgoskie", a vinyl with music from the album was produced. The official premiere
took place on November 11, and although the band did not play a concert that day, about
100 people gathered in the concert hall to listen to the stories and talk to the band members
for 2 hours.
Tomasz Gwinciński is a guitarist, drummer, composer, creator of film and theater music.
Founder of the legendary Bydgoszcz band Trytony in the 1990s. He regularly collaborates
with film and theater directors, e.g. Paweł Passini and Wojciech Kościelniak. His interests
include music, theater and cinema. Trytony played an important role in creating the yass
scene. Continuators of this trend were, among others, Gdańsk musicians Jerzy Mazzoll,
Mikołaj Trzaska, and Tymon Tymański. In the 1990s, Gwinciński was also the leader of three
other bands: Maestro Trytony, NonLinear Ensemble and Henryk Brodaty. In addition, he
worked on the music for Alfred Jarry’s “Ubu Król”, or “Poles”, directed by Wiesław Górski at
the Teatr Polski of Hieronim Konieczka in Bydgoszcz. Alongside his band mates, they played
it live at every performance. Since 2000, he has also composed music for feature films and
documentaries, including “Journey to your birthplace”. Gwinciński also made several short
films himself, such as “Film about Józef”. Since 2005, he has been collaborating with the
director Paweł Passini, and since 2008 with the theater director and actor Wojciech
Kościelniak.
Sławek Janicki is a musician, filmmaker and curator of artistic activity. He is the co- creator
and main director of the legendary Mózg club founded in 1994 in Bydgoszcz. Over the
period between 2014 and 2018 he also directed the club’s branch in
Warsaw. His is the creator and director of the International Contemporary Festival of Music
and Visual Arts MÓZG Festival that takes place in Bydgoszcz and Warsaw. He also created
another special project called SuperSam+1, Mózg on Screen-live as well as many other
bigger or smaller art events.
He started his artistic activity in mid 80’s. For over 25 years he has been active on the
international improvised music scene. He has played many concerts in Europe and
Australia. As a musician he is entirely devoted to absolute improvisation as it is the purest
form of creating music.
Jacek Buhl is a drummer associated with the Mózg club in Bydgoszcz. Currently, his playing
is going in two directions: on the one hand, it leans towards trance, repetitive rhythms
inspired by Billy Martin’s "Riddim: Claves of African Origin", African club music, or the Lisbon
label Principe, and on the other, it is a collective, free improvisation in the spirit of Tony
Oxley, Paul Lovens and Milford Graves. JB started playing drums in Variete, then recorded
and performed in several important bands for the yass and post-yass scene, including
Trytony, Syfon, The Cyclist, Spejs. Furthermore, recordings with trumpeter Wojciech Jachna
and the duo RDZA with Jarosław Majewski are important elements in Jacek’s musical path.
Currently, the most active bands in which he plays are ||ALA|MEDA||,
Jachna/Mazurkiewicz/Buhl and KWARTET with Piotr Mełech, Jakub Królikowski and
Jarosław Majewski.
So, on the first day of the Festival, we invite you to a unique concert by Trytony, a band that
has not existed since 1996.
Listen
Barbara Drazkov is a pianist, piano arranger, composer and performer living in Brussels. After studying at the Poznań Academy of Music, she continued her studies in Cologne and Lübeck as a scholarship holder of the German Government. She then moved to Spain where she worked with flamenco musicians and contemporary music ensembles in Seville. She has been living in Belgium for 12 years and gives concerts all over the world - at the Sydney Opera House, NCPA in Beijing, the Auditorium in Rome, the Warsaw Autumn, the Bunkamura Theater in Tokyo, the National Opera in Amsterdam, while also being involved during the Ars Musica in Brussels, etc. She is associated with contemporary dance theaters in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain; composes music for theater and animated films. She collaborates with Dominik Strycharski, Indian mridangam virtuoso Manjunath BC, Moroccan singer Mohammed El-Arabi Serghini, Congolese guitarist Pytshens Kambilo and composers: Paweł Mykietyn, Szymon Brzóska, Nicholas Lens. She is known for her performative activities - the ’Green Pianist’ bicycle tour, the ’Invisible Pianist’ concert in the dark, or the ’Present from the Artist’ music manifesto against polluting public places. Drazkov collects old, often neglected pianos and gives them a new life through his own preparations.
Reinhold Friedl studied piano among others with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Alan
Marks in Berlin, composition with Mario Bertoncini (nuova consonanza) and Witold
Szalonek. He collaborated with musicians like Keiji Haino, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Lucier,
Zbigniew Karkowski, Lou Reed, Carsten Nicolai, Diotima String Quartet, Laurie Anderson –
to name a few - and released more than hundred CDs. Beside his activities as composer
and as leader of the internationally acclaimed new music group Zeitkratzer, Reinhold Friedl is
renowned for his passionate and peerless piano performances. He invented numerous new
techniques of playing a grand piano directly on the strings and baptised it “inside piano”.
Frank Gratkowski is a freelance saxophonist, clarinettist, improviser and composer
currently living in Berlin, Germany. He studied saxophone at the Kölner Hochschule für Tanz
und Musik (Cologne Music Conservatory). He has been teaching at his alma mater for more
than 20 years. Gratkowski released over than 30 albums under his name and he appeared
on many more as a sideman. His musical range is quite limitless and includes experimental
music, jazz, improvised music, contemporary classical music, rock and electronic music. He
performs worldwide solo and as a member of orchestras. He also composes for different
ensembles, recently focusing more on sound and microtonality.
This project, which was originally a solo piano performance entitled “Survivor”, suddenly
changed when the Catalan Josep-Maria Balanyà and the Serbian Tamara Joksimovic were
introduced in Barcelona a week before a concert. Having received the informal proposal to
work together, they began rehearsing the same day they met and it became clear that artistic
and personal chemistry worked from the start. Eight days later, on April 8, 2022, they
premiered their joint project in the Utopia126 concert room in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, a
place full of magic.
The piece Survivor, created by Josep-Maria Balanyà and recorded on his Solo CD "Un Peu
À Gauche, SVP" (2007 Laika Recs.), was performed by Balanyà at the “Two Days and Two
Nights of New Music”, a Festival in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2007. Now, in 2023, this work takes
on a special value because of the attack on this country. Survivor is dedicated to Ukraine.
The performance shows a powerful instrument, performed by the pianist and composer
Balanyà with orthodox and extended techniques, plus his chant. And on the other hand, the
collaboration between Tamara Joksimovic, who created the mapping and light scenography,
and Martina Ampuero, the videojockey. Martina plays with Tamara ’s mapping creation,
projecting the images on the piano, on the pianist and on the whole stage.
Balanyà on stage, Martina in the video control and Tamara as designer of the mapping, all
together create an audio-visual dramaturgy full of tension and drama.
Josep-Maria Balanyà is a Catalan composer, sound artist, painter, photographer and pianist
with 27 recorded CD ’s and more than 140 works. His career has taken him from classical
music and jazz, up until his specialization into the field of improvisation and the new
contemporary, experimental music and performance. Among his works are multimedia
projects for piano, voice, electronics, video, Butoh dance, sculpture and sound installations.
His works as a solo pianist reflect his interest in complimenting the pure sound of the piano
with pieces for the prepared or extended piano. Balanyà has played in festivals and radio
programs in many countries in Europe and America. He has received several grants in
Germany and Switzerland. He has developed his most imaginative actions at the boundary
between music and performance, such as a recital in complete darkness at the Sendesaal of
Bremen or the concert for the bells of Trier ’s cathedral (Germany). The concerts by Balanyà
are powerful rituals – it could be said that he plays the piano with his whole body – during
which we can perceive the presence of music change into matter.
Tamara Joksimovic was born in 1989, in Belgrade, Serbia. She studied scenography at the
Faculty of Applied Arts, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia, where she obtained bachelor
and masters degree in 2013. She finished Grad School at The Universiity of South Carolina
in Scenic Deisgn. Since, she has been working on professional Theatre and Opera
productions in Europe and the United States. She has worked with La Fura dels Baus, doing
Scenography and Costumes on productions in Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, France,
Austria etc. In her work she focuses on questioning the notion of reality, and searches for
ways of challenging its boundaries.
Martina Ampurero Visual artist and VJ based in Barcelona, graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts
(University of Barcelona) with a specialization in painting and illustration, and a
Master ’s degree in 3D Animation from IDEC (Pompeu Fabra University). She began
her professional career as a 3D artist at Urano Films, creating 3D landscapes, sets,
motion graphics, and visual effects for operas such as Sonntag aus Licht, Turandot,
Quartett, Tristan and Isolde, working with directors like Carlüs Padrissa, Àlex
Ollé (La Fura dels Baus), and Franc Aleu. Currently, she works as a 3D artist at
Eyesberg Studio, which she co-founded, while also developing personal projects.
LASY - a band from the Tri-City in Poland, which consists of Maciej Wojcieszkiewicz (Stendek) and Jacek Prościński (wh0wh0). Maciej Wojcieszkiewicz has been active for many years as a producer on stage, is a winner of the Fryderyk award in the Electronics category for the production of the Reni Jusis album. Jacek Prościński is a drummer, he mostly co-creates, LLovage with Ol Walicki or Hinode Tapes. Above all, however, he pursues his solo project wh0wh0, in which he develops his own individual style of drumming. So far, LASY has released two albums "Little Giant" and the album nominated for the Fryderyk award, "Shroom".
Piotr Peszat is a composer and sound artist. His artistic activity combines elements of instrumental, electronic, multimedia and performance music. His works have been presented at many concerts and festivals, including the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Warsaw Autumn”, Musica Polonica Nova, Musica Electronica Nova, Darmstadt Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Sacrum Profanum, or Ultraschall. In 2013–2015 he studied composition at The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus with Simon Steen-Andersen. In the years 2009-2014 he studied at the Academy of Music in Krakow in the class of Krzysztof Meyer, from which he graduated with honors, receiving the title of Master in Arts. After completing doctoral studies under the supervision of Marek Chołoniewski, in 2018 he received the degree of Doctor in Arts. He defended his habilitation in 2022. In addition to autonomous activities, he creates music for theater performances and films. He works as an assistant at the Studio of Electroacoustic Music of Karol Szymanowski in Cracow.
HYBRID is a performance for a rapper, 4 female performers, and visualizations.
The work is composed by Anna Jędrzejewska, to the libretto of D’Chaos, performed by the
artists of the Sztuka Ciała Foundation: Joanna Płóciennik, Anna Ługowska, Katarzyna
Markowska. Visuals were created by Anna Jędrzejewska for photos by Małgorzata
Kaznowska Filipek.
The content of HYBRID is a poetic reflection on the present day and the idea of
transpersonalism. The stage action is playing with contexts: corporeality in the idea of
absolute music (the orchestra dragged out of the opera pit and placed naked on stage) or
rap in the slam convention (the performer addresses the listener directly).
Hybrid is a combination of elements that, despite structural differences, are to cooperate,
although they seemingly have nothing in common, in the modern world it refers to devices
powered by alternative energy sources, including traditional ones. The hybrid in the concept
of our project is a metaphor for modernity: the coexistence of the "old" with the "new", the
living with the machine, the dancer with the musician, and rap with classically composed
music.
Folded Maps of Time (FoMaTi) is an immersive audio-visual work for live performance that
integrates biosensoric electromagnetic systems (MC) and object-oriented electrified
percussion (CC). The audience will be surrounded by a multichannel sound and video
system, as if inside a living organism, or virtual brain, with multiple inlets, outlets, channels
and infinite chaotic entanglements: these are our folded maps of time; a flux of unstable
memories and constant flow. Brain activity will be projected as a virtual floating model of in a
collage of graphic forms, photographs, B&W videos and live real-time images, macro and
microscopic. Ambisonic surround-sound projection will map an analogue internal brain – this
being one critical core of the performing system, since biofeedback plays a significant role in
all aspects of the performance: selected brain waves (delta, theta, alfa, beta, gamma,
meditation, attention, raw data) being used as both readers and processors of performer
behavior to mediate the subconscious and intuitive selection of prepared, pre-composed and
performed materials. Against the intuitive stands the deliberative - as brainwave-driven
sounds and images are interpreted and interleaved in real-time by sounds physically and
intentionally generated by a second performer using electronically processed and spatialised
percussion – the sum feeding back organically, or contrarily, into the monitored state of mind
of the first performer. Thus brain biofeedback will be multiplied and extended in performance
through a mélange of voluntary and involuntary feedbacks, occasioning cascades of reaction
from both performers. This commission offers a unique collaboration between the Polish
composer and artist Marek Chołoniewski and the British percussionist and composer, Chris
Cutler, integrating Chołoniewski’s award-winning audio and audio-visual work in
electroacoustic performance, and Cutler’s history of creating vanguard works across multiple
genres using extended instruments and techniques.
FoMaTi was produced in frame of +100 Three visions of emerging avant-garde as part of
Polska 100 – a project of Adam Mickiewicz Institute which is responsible for international
celebrations program of the Polish independence centenary. +100 has been conceived by
Roderick Coover, and produced and co-curated by Katarzyna Boratyn under the institutional
direction of Anna Szylar at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Chris Cutler is a member of the British experimental group Henry Cow for 10
years, founder or co-founder of a series of mixed national groups including Art Bears, News
from Babel, Cassiber, The (ec) Nudes, p53, and The Science Group, and former permanent
member of American bands Pere Ubu, Hail and The Wooden Birds. He has worked with
dance, film, hoerspiel, symphony orchestras, theatre and radio, toured the world as a soloist
with his extended electrified kit and appeared in countless contexts as a member of the
international improvising community. In 2003/4 he ran a daily year-long soundscape project
for Resonance FM. He founded and runs the independent label ReR Megacorp and
authored the theoretical collection File Under Popular - as well as numerous articles and
papers, published in 16 languages. He was on faculty at the Museum School in Boston and
lectures irregularly on theoretical and music related topics worldwide. He is currently
producing a series of monthly radio lectures for the Museum of Modern Art, Barcelona.
Marek Chołoniewski is a composer, sound artist, performer and professor. Founder and
co-founder of many groups including Freight Train (with Piotr Bikont and Krzysztof Knittel),
Studio MCH, DoubleMark (with Mark Polishook), CH&K&K (with Krzysztof Knittel and
Włodzimierz Kiniorski), mc2 duo (with M.Chyrzyński), Infinity Quartet (with Keir Neuringer,
Ryan Zawel and Rafał Mazur), Natural Plastic (with Amy Knoles), Kinetic Trio (with
Włodzimierz Kiniorski and Rafał Mazur), dizzy kinetics (with Łukasz Szalankiewicz), and
Infinity Trio (with Miłosz Łuczyński and Łukasz Szalankiewicz), which gives concerts and
records albums. Since 2008, Secretary, and since 2011 - President of International
Confederation for Electroacoustic Music CIME/ICEM. Since 2010, Director of Audiosphere
Lab at the Intermedia Department of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In
2012, cofounder of GrupLab, a scientific-art collective.
Prague-based Ursula Sereghy’s OK Box seems to challenge the listener to a mode of perception, undoubtedly following its own internal logic yet making perfect sense. Sereghy’s background is as a saxophone player in jazz bands, but ‘OK Box’ sees her step into working solo, ‘experimenting with machines and sound design’, according to the liner notes. The pieces unfurl like a 1970s fibre-optic lamp, lines of ideas firing multi-directionally outwards from a centre but never totally unhinging themselves from the base. ‘Slug Tremollo (Defenders Of The Existent)’ is built on a choral line which sounds like it could be lifted from an Arvo Pärt composition. Cut up and reassembled into every possible permutation, it becomes a fluctuating hook spinning through the scattered arrangement. Other tracks sound like a big band refined down to the molecular and sprinkled across exploding glitch funk, flashes of meandering bass and wind instruments further bending the unhinged grooves, so that the closing three songs combine into something approaching a trance track getting ever more tangled up in its own contorted momentum. The whole tape seems to strive towards shedding hierarchies, pointing away from electronic music’s traditional unison and tight structures to something far more open ended and genuinely transcendent.
Grischa Lichtenberger is an electronic music producer, visual and installation artist living in Berlin. Having been raised in a withdrawn farmhouse near Bielefeld (Westphalia), his artistic approach developed from surveying the landscape as reference for the condition of art production itself. His music aims towards a paradoxical parallelism of introspective moods on the dance floor and unsettling contemplations in an intimate listening situation. Technology appears not as the perfect, mathematically defined form, but as an index of failure and error, as a shadow of the spooking despairs and desires of its producer, engraved in the finiteness of the concrete form to be embraced by the attentive. In 2009, he released his ep “treibgut” as part of the unun series on raster-noton, followed by his debut album “and iv (inertia)” in 2012. He has played audiovisual live sets on international festivals and realized several commissioned installations on both local and international sites.
Hilde Wollenstein is a composer and performer based in Berlin and an alumna of the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, Netherlands. She intends to formalise states and situations through the agency of musical affect and cultural baggage, soul-seeking for humour and armour, participation, belief and release. Confusing dogmatic classifications of material and form, her work repeatedly revolves around the second thought.
Mózg Festival - International Festival of Contemporary Music and Visual Arts is a meeting of artists active in all areas of contemporary music, performance art, audio and video installations in which music plays an important role.
Artists from all over the world are invited to participate in the festival, as one of the festival's goals is multiculturalism and presentations that foster learning and understanding of the multifaceted nature of cultures. The festival showcases the latest performance techniques and interdisciplinary combinations within the context of and respect for tradition. Outstanding individuals from the world of art and young artists whose work to date bears the hallmarks of exceptionality are invited to take part in the festival. The participation of local artists fulfilling the above-mentioned assumptions is also an indispensable element of the festival. All artistic activities are treated as a means of gaining a deeper understanding of the surrounding reality and the changes taking place in the world, as well as the personal development of both the creators and recipients of festival activities.
To make the ideological assumptions clearer, successive editions of the festival are given a theme. The themes of the editions of the festival derive from each other and complement each other; they define the essential thoughts of the festival's creators. The festivals taking place in 2019-2021 were held under the motto “ART AS A WAY TO UNDERSTANDING”. We believe that art, especially contemporary art, is a tool for activating the hidden possibilities within the brain that allow us to perceive and understand what surrounds us. In other words, we proceed from the assumption that art is not an end in itself, but is a tool to achieve other, deeper goals. At different times, other forms of artistic activity have had different social functions. The same applies to our times. The three previous editions of the festival also dealt with themes closely related to the problems of contemporary communities and were accompanied by the following themes: “COME DOWN TO EARTH”, “SPIRITUALITY IS EVERYWHERE” and “MAKE ART NOT WAR”.
The next four editions of the Festival have been given the theme “DO NOT FORGET TO KEEP YOUR MIND CLEAR”. We believe that nowadays, when we are attacked by an overabundance of often contradictory or false information, when many values are collapsing, when the meaning of right and wrong is being lost, when millions of people are living in uncertainty, be it because of pandemics, ongoing wars or looming ecological disasters, it is extremely important to make an effort to keep our minds clear. Only clear-minded, independent people are able, as a society, to cope with the problems of the modern world on a personal, local and global level. Presenting properly selected artistic activities and placing them in the right context can have a significant impact on increasing the perception of the audience participating in the artistic activities, lectures and meetings that are part of the festival. A broadened perception means a clearer mind, which is in turn capable of making independent wise decisions.
By default, the festival is an international event. It is important for us to reach out with the ideas of the festival to societies in other countries. That is why, for the sake of broader understanding, we decided to devise the festival slogan in English. The multicultural nature of the festival stems from our conviction that knowledge of cultural differences and conscious acceptance of these differences is the basis for international understanding. We also believe that contemporary art, including experimental music and all other interdisciplinary forms of creation, significantly influence human creativity and produce the ability to think independently, free of stereotypes. A human being, by interacting with contemporary art on a daily basis, while having knowledge of the cultural diversity of the surrounding community, has the chance to live in it in a conscious manner, without fear, full of understanding for the needs of others, with the ability to stand up for oneself and one's fellow citizens, as a member of a developing multicultural civil society.
Mózg Festival is an interdisciplinary event in which music plays a special role, and in addition to music we will see performance art, audiovisual installations, film, multimedia art. The program also includes lectures, workshops and meetings with significant figures from the fields of art and philosophy. The program of the festival is constructed so that all of the above-mentioned arts intermingle, and meetings and conversations build a context for artistic activities.
The festival has no stylistic restrictions. The criterion in the selection of artists is the authenticity of the art presented and the highest level of performance. The festival is accompanied by educational activities: workshops, lectures, meetings of festival guests with artists and recognised authorities from the world of art, philosophy and sociology.
Part of the project is professional audio and video documentation and archiving, which is intended to disseminate culture, promote the city of Bydgoszcz and the region, as well as strengthen identity.
This year, the festival will take place in three places: Teatr Polski (chamber room), the BWA Gallery and at the Mózg club. Admission to all events during the festival will be free. Free participation in the festival will be possible with an invitation, which you receive by email. This is a tested way of creating a festival community, i.e. a group of people united around certain ideas. This method creates a sense of participation in a specific social group, which grows from year to year, but remains defined by its interests.
The festival organizer will ensure accessibility for people with special needs. Most of the festival events will take place in venues adapted to the needs of people with physical disabilities. In the Mózg Club, where there are no facilities for people with physical disabilities, such people will have the opportunity to send a request for participation in the event. The club will provide the services of staff to assist the wheelchair user to find their way around the building to attend the event. The project website and all information about the event published online will have a version for the visually and hearing impaired. Printed materials will have a QR code which will redirect to a page that allows them to read the material.
Applications for the participation of deaf people shold be submitted at least 7 days before the event to the following address: fundacja@mozg.art.pl
Admission to all festival events is granted upon presenting an invitation.
You can obtain a free invitation by sending a message to
pr@mozg.art.pl
