ARTIKULAT

A work commissioned by the NAMES Ensemble (New Art and Music Ensemble Salzburg) composed by Antoni Rayzhekov, ARTIKULAT is a complex, participatory sound performance-installation for four musicians, an audience under surveillance and an audio-visual computer system including biofeedback, sound and visual synthesis and surveillance camera. Each musician is equipped with a special wearable biofeedback device – monitoring the body’s bio-signals during the performance, such as: heart rate, stress level and body movement. Each musician’s bio-signals are projected on the stage in real-time and are modulating short audiovisual recordings constructing the piece. 
 
The work extends beyond the traditional musical performance, focusing solely on the articulation of the sound by the bio-signals of the performers, exposing something very personal and corporal, which usually remains hidden from the audience. By completely removing the material presence of the musical instruments on the stage during the performance we can focus on the detailed articulation of the physical and sonic experience of the performers. However, the computer system includes a surveillance camera, that detects every movement of the audience which directly affects the performance’s sound. The game of performing-while- listening now is shared between the performers and the audience and the group dynamics of the audience together with the bio-signals of the four musicians drives the resulting sound piece by creating a feedback loop between audience and performers. That “performing while listening” between audience and ensemble, as a feedback loop of social interaction, is explored in this work. 
 
 
NAMES (New Art and Music Ensemble Salzburg) is a Salzburg based contemporary music 
ensemble founded in 2014. The ten musicians, coming from seven european countries, aim to combine different forms of contemporary art in their programs and concepts, with the goal of enriching their musical approach. Therefore, they collaborate with various artists from a wide range of disciplines (performance, dance, visual arts, literature...). A special focus lies on the integration of electronics into the ensemble-sound. 
 
The ensemble can look back at a rich activity, projects and concerts at national and international venues and festivals such as Festival Aspekte Salzburg, Dialoge Festival, Festival Mixtur (Barcelona), Druskomanija (Lithuania), Transart Festival (Bolzano), Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival (South Korea), Primavera Verona (Italy), Schönberg Center (Vienna) oder Adevantgarde (Munich). In 2021 NAMES has also started its own concert cycle in Salzburg and since 2018 has a fix collaboration with Mozarteum University of Salzburg and its Studio for Electronic Music. 
The ensemble understands itself as a collective, which is democratically working on all artistic and managing decisions together. By combining a desire for chamber music and sound craftsmanship, NAMES sees itself as an experimental laboratory for lovers of new ideas and sounds. 
 
www.names-ensemble.com   
 
Antoni Rayzhekov is an interdisciplinary artist working in the field of music, theatre and digital arts born in Sofia, Bulgaria and currently living in Salzburg, Austria. Rayzhekov has a master degree in theatre directing and bachelor in performing at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts “K. Sarafov”, Sofia. He studied jazz improvisation at the Vienna Konservatorium / jazz department and computer programming at LearningTree, London. He is a co-founder of the Vienna-based New Media label THIS.PLAY [2013], focused on interactive technologies and art, and a associate lecturer since 2012 in the Media and Digital Technologies (Interactive Media / Experimental Media) at the University for Applied Science (St. Pölten, Austria) and since 2016, a guest lecturer at the National Academy of Art (Digital Arts MA program / “Performative Media”) - Sofia, Bulgaria. 
 
He is a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude [2015-2017] - Stuttgart, Germany and Akademie 
Hallein [2014] - Hallein, Austria. Since 2004 he is working professionally as an artist in the field of “performative media”, borrowing from contemporary theatre, music and dance performance practices, developing generative music and motion graphics compositions, creating audiovisual works based on interactive technologies and using techniques such as sonification, musification, artificial behavioral and unstable systems. Through designing and building performative “instruments”, he situate the media as a creative partner and often as a protagonist and an author, in addition to employing the audience as an active participator and co-author, while attempting to uncover and reveal hidden processes and entanglements, often at the border of unpredictable results, letting the artwork unfold “here and now”. 
 
www.rayzhekov.com   

The event is realized with the financial support of the Austrian Embassy Sofia.