Synopsis PDF

31 July 2017: A digital publication including an essay by the artist and filmmaker Luke Fowler, installation photography and full production credits is now available to download:

https://www.sadiecoles.com/publications/239/

ISBN 978–0–90–616998–8 

Synopsis, Tramway, Glasgow

26th May - 30th July 2017: Synopsis

Tramway
25 Albert Drive
Glasgow, G41 2PE

Event: Formulation As Texture, IRCAM Live, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

18 March 2017: Premiere of Formulation As Texture at IRCAM Live, Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Samedi 18 mars 2017, 20h30
Centre Pompidou
Grande salle

more information here 

Inspection II - Andquestionmark

16 March 2017: A series of projections is presented, accompanied by clinical observations. Next. Replicate non-trivial traits. Next. Andquestionmark presents the new work “Inspection II” by acclaimed composer and sound experimentalist Florian Hecker. Next. Hecker’s pluriphonic composition uses computer-generated sound and a synthetic voice. Next. Mackay libretto. Next. Original sound material is algorithmically reconstructed, the specificity of the timbre explored and reprocessed. Next. If the materiality of a sound changes, is it still the same? If the cells of your body change, are you still the same? Next. The title “Inspection II” refers to the attempt to look inside introspectively, while acknowledging that by watching something, we change it. If we cannot capture anything in a definite way, what’s the minimum you need to understand? Next. Listening is a constructive act, and as listener you are part of the creation of the sonic fabric. Next. Hecker’s work is unsaturated. Starting out as a dialogical machine-machine interplay, the sound disintegrates from recognisable speech to more and more abstract sounds masking each other, concluding in noise absent of a signal. Nex… (press text)

Andquestionmark
Stefanie Hessler & Carsten Höller
Roslagsgatan 60
11354 Stockholm
Sweden

more information here

Broadcast: Tapage Nocturne

06.03.2017: L'invité du jour : Florian Hecker 

listen to the podcast here or download here

Release: A Script for Machine Synthesis

24 February 2017: Editions Mego releases A Script for Machine Synthesis - CD and digital download. "The latest work from Florian Hecker A Script for Machine Synthesis is an experimental auditory drama and a model of abstraction. A Script for Machine Synthesis presents a complex simplicity that spirals in an unending manner as an audio image of the uncanny valley. It is the third chapter in the trilogy of text-sound pieces Hecker has collaborated with the philosopher Reza Negarestani. A resynthesized voice outlines procedure as procedure itself unfolds. The suggestive encounter with a pink ice cube is a conceptual point of departure for a scene in which linguistic chimeras of descriptors are materialized through synthetic trophies, mental props and auditory objects.Hecker presents a synthesis of the gap in the valley which we almost know. The motifs Hecker has staged in the last decade, the text, the sound, the scent, the obelisk, the demon, the self, the other all appear throughout in a thorough, rigid and formal exploration.Exeunt all human actors, A Script for Machine Synthesis is an experiment in putting synthetic emptiness back into synthetic thought." (press release)

full credits

order here 

Release: Articulação Sintetico

24 February 2017: "Editions Mego is proud to release Articulação Sintetico - a complete resynthesis of Hecker’s 2014 Editions Mego album Articulação. A meticulous reconstruction and transfer of qualities, Articulação Sintetico features synthetic voice models of Joan La Barbara, Sugata Bose and Anna Kohler, a DBM sparse replica of non speech content and a scattering transform of Modulator (... meaningless, affectless, out of nothing ...). Uncanny Valley 2.0.

1. Synthetic Hinge ✳ (23:21)
2. Modulator (Scattering Transform) + (29:08)
3. Synthetic Hinge ✳✳ (23:54)

Written and produced by Florian Hecker, 2014 - 2017.
Text “Nature, its man and his goat (Enigmata of natural and cultural chimeras)” by Reza Negarestani. Auditory Chimera Software by Bertrand Delgutte with Jayaganesh Swaminathan ✳✳; Pointillistic Speech Toolkit by Gerald Kidd, Timothy Streeter, Antje Ihlefeld, Ross Maddox and Christine Mason ✳/✳✳; Asymmetric Sample Replacement Algorithm by Tommi Keränen ✳; Synthetic Voices designed by Rob Clark* Christophe Veaux ✳✳, Centre for Speech Technology Research, University of Edinburgh; DBM Sparse Decomposition Algorithm by Bob Sturm ✳✳; Scattering Transform Algorithm by Vincent Lostanlen +. Graphic Design: NORM, Zurich"
(press release)

order here

Event: A Script for Machine Synthesis / Articulação Sintetico, rhiz, Vienna

28 February 2017:  A Script for Machine Synthesis / Articulação Sintetico release party • TTS002

live: HECKER, JUNG AN TAGEN, 
dj inou ki endo

rhiz - bar modern
U-Bahnbogen 37
1080 Vienna

http://rhiz.org/

FAVN, GoN, Moscow

20 - 27 February 2017: FAVN is part of geometry of now at GES2, Moscow
more information and performance times of FAVN here and here 

Formulations Publication

12 December 2016: 
Formulations is a trans-disciplinary collection of responses to the work of Florian Hecker, published to complement his major solo show at Culturgest, Porto, Portugal, September–December 2015 and MMK, Frankfurt, Nov 2016–Feb 2017. The exhibition brings together works by Hecker from 2006–present.

Both abstract and material, Hecker’s approach to his works is informed by the technical manipulation of sound and, increasingly, other media; yet in their realisation as installation or performance, the works produce rich subjective sensory experiences that evade categorisation. Their computational composition makes the works ‘virtual’ in a certain sense, yet experience of their manifestation is profoundly material, even physical. The works propose new experimental forms yet contain references to histories of conceptual art, minimalism, and performance. Viscerally disturbing, high-volume performances can be the product of austere conceptualisations. All of these qualities prevent the works from being exhaustively described by any one disciplinary approach.The book meshes together a number of different approaches to the work and to its significance for contemporary culture. 

Contributions by Éric Alliez, Ina Blom, François J. Bonnet, Gabriel Catren, Diedrich Diederichsen, Christopher Haworth, Robin Mackay, Sarat Maharaj, Reza Negarestani, Michael Newman and Fernando Zalamea address the work along three major conceptual axes of Synthesis, Perspective, and Hallucination.

Editor Robin Mackay (Urbanomic, UK, editor of Collapse: Journal of Philosophical Research and Development) together with designers NORM (Zurich) have developed a unique editorial and typographic model which responds formally to the content matter. The contributions will be arranged according to an experimental process of ‘interpolation’, with fragmentary anticipations and echoes distributing each text across the entire volume, relaying some of the synthetic processes of Hecker’s work and making the whole more than the sum of its parts: a many-voiced chimera and a series of ‘refrains’ or ‘repetitions’.

While the authors’ contributions come from various perspectives and with different concerns, parts of each text will be typographically ‘glued’ into the others, highlighting continuities across the texts and encouraging the reader to piece together a global view of the conceptual space opened up by Hecker’s work—in the same way as, in the work itself, the audience is compelled to piece together fragmented perceptions, cognitively participating in the very production of the work. This formal innovation will also be echoed in the format, with the texts wrappring around or looping from last to first page, making for a book with no formal beginning or end, in which heterogeneous materials and divergent perspectives circulate and, with the participation of the reader, enter into new synthetic dialogues with one other.

more information here and here 

Event: Inspection, BBC Radio 3

3 December 2016: A special live edition of BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now in Maida Vale Studio 3 featuring "Inspection - Maida Vale Project", a major new electroacoustic work for multi-channel surround sound. Hecker’s work has been commissioned for Radio 3's 70th season, celebrating 70 years of pioneering sound since the founding of the Third Programme. In partnership with BBC Research and Development, it will be broadcast in live binaural sound.

** Please note this is a standing audience **

Admission to this recording is on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that as not everyone who asks for tickets uses them, to make sure we have a full house we send out more tickets than there are places. We do our best to get the numbers right, but unfortunately we occasionally have to disappoint people so please arrive early.

BBC iPlayer link and more information here

Show: Formulations - MMK, Frankfurt

26  November 2016 - 05 Februay 2017: Florian Hecker - Formulations

MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main
Domstraße 10
60311 Frankfurt am Main

more information here

Event: continuous verb, MMCA, Seoul

28 - 30 October 2016: performance at continuous verb

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
313 Gwangmyeong-ro, Makgye-dong
Gwacheon-si, Gyeonggi-do
Seoul
South Korea

Chimerization at MoMA PS1

23 October 2016 - 05 March 2017: Chimerization is part of the exhibition Mark Leckey: Containers and Their Drivers at MoMA PS1, New York

more information here

Event: LUFF, Lausanne

19 October 2016: Yasunao Tone, Yasunao Tone & Hecker, Hecker …

Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival 
Casino de Montbenon
Salle des fêtes
Allée Ernest Ansermet 3

CH-1003 Lausanne

more information here

FAVN

FAVN
5. Oktober 2016
20 Uhr

Großer Saal
Alte Oper
Opernplatz
60313 Frankfurt

more information and tickets here

Event: Florian Hecker / John McCracken

16.06.2016: In conversation with Christian Egger, Florian Hecker will recapitulate his exhibition “Florian Hecker / John McCracken” at Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien back in 2015, and present the accompanying publication Florian Hecker / John McCracken, which will be released by Sternberg Press in Berlin.

Künstlerhaus
Halle für Kunst & Medien
Burgring 2
8010 Graz
Austria

more information here

Event: Mercado do Bolhão, Porto

12.06.2016: Mercado do Bolhão  
Rua de Fernandes Tomás
4000-214 Porto
Portugal

17- 19h

FREE ADMISSION

more information here

Event: schwarzescafé, LUMA Westbau, Zurich

11.May 2016: performance at schwarzescafé

LUMA Westbau
Limmatstrasse 270
8005 Zürich
Schweiz

more information here

Chimerization Modulator Synthetic Hinge

21 April 2016:

Xing presents at Live Arts Week/Gianni Peng V

Florian Hecker
Chimerization     Modulator     Synthetic Hinge

Thursday 21 April 2016 - 9:00 PM
MAMbo - Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna

www.liveartsweek.it
www.xing.it

Show: Up Down Top Bottom Strange and Charm, Art Sheffield

16 April – 8 May 2016: Hinge at "Up Down Top Bottom Strange and Charm", Art Sheffield

more information here

Show: The Royal College of Art - Curating Contemporary Art - Sound Field

9 - 20 March 2016

16/CCA 
Curating Contemporary Art - Sound Field
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore
London SW7 2EU 

more information here

Event: Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera – US Premiere – MoMA PS1

22 November 2015: Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera – US Premiere

MoMA PS1

22-25 Jackson Avenue

Long Island City, NY

USA

more information https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/3423

A Script for Machine Synthesis, Maison de la Radio, Paris

24 October 2015, 18:00h:

A Script for Machine Synthesis

Maison de la Radio - Studio 104
116 Avenue du Président Kennedy 
75016 Paris

Admission free

more information here

Event: Music for Museums – Whitechapel Gallery, London

15 October 2015: Performance, Whitechapel Gallery

77-82 Whitechapel High St 

London E1 7QX

more information here 

Show: Formulations, Culturgest, Porto

25 September - 19 December 2015: Florian Hecker, Formulations

Culturgest Porto

Edifício Caixa Geral de Depósitos

Avenida dos Aliados nº104

4000-065 Porto

Portugal

De segunda-feira a sábado, das 12h30 às 18h30 

Encerra domingos e feriados 

www.culturgest.pt

Show: Preis der Nationalgalerie 2015, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin

11. September 2015 – 17. Januar 2016

Preis der Nationalgalerie 2015

Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin
Invalidenstraße 50–51
10557 Berlin

more info here

EBM(T) Issue 8: The Brain-Ear

link

Event: Kunsthalle Basel & HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel)

30.05.15: Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera – LP Release – Talk and Concert

During the last days of the exhibition UniAddDumThs by Mark Leckey, Kunsthalle Basel, HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel) and the Berlin based label PAN celebrate the release of the der LP Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera. The event starts at 5 pm at Kunsthalle Basel with a talk, followed by a small reception with food, drinks and sounds. At 9 pm Florian Hecker will perform live at HeK, supported by a live-set of Bill Kouligas (PAN).

Kunsthalle Basel

Steinenberg 7

CH-4051 Basel

Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel

Freilager-Platz 9

CH-4142 Münchenstein / Basel

more information here

Event: Counterflows - CCA Glasgow

03.04.2015: performance at CCA Glasgow Auditorium

more information here

Release: Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera

30.03.2015: Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera 12" vinyl and digital download released on PAN.

"In 2010, acclaimed German sound experimentalist Florian Hecker and multidisciplinary artist Mark Leckey came together for the first time. Their combined Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera—a mutant configuration of two genetically discrete solo works—was originally presented as part of a two-day performance event at the Tate Modern called Push and Pull, and arrives as PAN’s inaugural offering of 2015. Both artists, as the art historian Alex Kitnick notes in his text accompanying the release, have a demonstrated interest in sound and its material effects; Hecker’s acute, algorithmic computer music is noted for impacting the very molecular infrastructure of its listeners, while Leckey’s work across performance, sculpture, and installation takes up transcendence and the occupation (or animation) of new bodies and modes of being.

In Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera, Hecker decomposes, modulates, and re-synthesizes the vocal track from Leckey’s 2010 performance piece “GreenScreenRefrigeratorAction” (for which Leckey intoned the inner monologue of a black Samsung fridge) and his own “3 Channel Chronics” installation from that same year, where distinct sounds from three speakers telescoping down from the ceiling were combined and altered by visitors’ movements. The result- ing work—like that three-headed beast of Greek mythology—is a multivalent, tri-part hybrid in which heavily distorted fragments of Leckey’s narrative intersperse Hecker’s synthetic textures and fidgety tonal patterns. On the PAN release itself, channel 1 from Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera corresponds with side A and channel 2 with side B; channel 3 is available as a monophonic mp3 download."  (press release)

more info here

Event: Haus der Kunst, München

26.03.2015: Performance, Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera

20:00 h CET 

Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstraße 1
80538 München

more information here 

A Script for Machine Synthesis

26.02 & 28.02 & 01.03.2015: A Script for Machine Synthesis, Teijin Auditorium, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Sonic Acts Festival 2015

A Script for Machine Synthesis is a sound piece, an experimental drama, a model of abstraction recalling Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty as much as Beckett’s minimalist narratives and neo-imagist poetry. It is the climactic third chapter in the trilogy of text-sound pieces Hecker has collaborated with the writer and philosopher Reza Negarestani (Chimerization, documenta 13 and Hinge, Lumiar Cité, Lisbon; both 2012). The suggestive encounter with a pink ice cube is a conceptual point of departure for a scene in which linguistic chimeras of smell/sound descriptions are materialized through synthetic trophies, auditory objects, and theatrical props. Exeunt all human actors, A Script for Machine Synthesis is an experiment in putting synthetic emptiness back into synthetic thought, featuring main vocals by Charlotte Rampling, a perfume created by Frédéric Malle, Editions de Parfums and Carlos Benaïm, IFF, a synthetic voice designed by Rob Clark and the Center for Speech Research Technology, University of Edinburgh, a CAL 64 Column Array Loudspeaker System by Meyer Sound, and a synthetic paper booklet designed by NORM, Zurich.

A Script for Machine Synthesis is a Sonic Acts Commission. Co-presented by Sonic Acts and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam with the support of Sadie Coles HQ, London; Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle; Galerie Neu, Berlin; and Meyer Sound. 

26 February 19:30 & 21:00 
28 February 16:00
01 March 16:00

more information here, and:

http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/calendar/performances/71930

Show: Florian Hecker / John McCracken, Künstlerhaus Graz

31.01.2015 - 05.03.2015: Florian Hecker / John McCracken

26.02.2015 
19:00 pm
Lecture "The Hallucinating Ear" by Robin Mackay (Cornwall)

Künstlerhaus
Halle für Kunst & Medien
Burgring 2
8010 Graz
Austria

more information here

photography here

Show: Chimerization / Hinge, Midway Contemporary Art

16.01.2015 - 14.02.2015: Chimerization and Hinge at Midway Contemporary Art as part of Exploring Compositional Epistemologies

Midway Contemporary Art
527 Second Avenue Southeast
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414
USA

Please note special gallery hours
Wednesday – Friday: 4pm – 9pm / Saturday: 11am – 6pm

more information here

photography here

Event: SAVANA SPECTRAL, Circolo Filologico Milanese

31.10.2014: Peformance Circolo Filologico Milanese

Circolo Filologico Milanese
Via Clerici 10
20121 Milano

more info here

Show: Fondation Louis Vuitton

24.10.2014 - 24.11.2014: Formulation (FLV Project) as part of the opening exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton

Fondation Louis Vuitton
8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi
75116 Paris

more here and:

http://www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr/en/performances-florian-hecker-.html