M!NDF*KC
Oct 2, 2024, 7:30pm @ BMCA Storage
#occupyBMCA:
Olga Georgieva
BMCA interventions on our walls
Herbert Lacina: 12- string bass
Karlheinz Essl: modular synth
Edward Reardon: piano
Essl, Reardon, Lacina – Creating a Body of Vibration
Text: Neve Regli | Photos: Rita Chen
For the third time, the BMCA Storage will be filled with cosmic sound waves and occupied anew as part of #occupyBMCA. Karlheinz Essl performs together with Edward Reardon (USA) on the piano and Herbert Lacina (Vienna) with his 12-string bass. The three artists, composers and performers form the M!NDF*KC ensemble, in which they improvise experimentally together since November 2023. M!NDF*KC creates an unstable network and shows unstable and fragile connections. It is a non-linear oscillation system that draws on feedback processes and thus constantly reconfigures itself. The performance takes place amidst the works of Olga Georgieva. Georgieva’s works focus on interpersonal relationships. She also links or separates them with red threads, creating a fragile network. The performance reacts in the same way, stretching around Georgieva's works like a thin, delicate net and allowing them to react to each other.
M!NDF*CK ensemble during the Performance at BMCA Storage, BMCA, 2024.
Olga Georgieva for #occupyBMCA and Curator Alexandra Grimmer, BMCA, 2024.
M!NDF*CK ensemble during the performance, BMCA, 2024.
The visitors at the M!NDF*CK performance, Olga Georgievas work in the background, BMCA, 2024.
The catering is prepared, the wine chilled. The three artists prepare their instruments for the performance. Slowly, the guests start to arrive. Finally, the room is well filled and after the welcoming speech of Alexandra Grimmer, the performance begins. It is interesting to hear how the three different instruments react to each other. The piano with the keys, the bass with the strings and the synthesizer with its cables and buttons. And yet – despite the different haptics and sounds of the instruments, they complement each other in a wondrous way and take us on a journey of sound. By modulating the different instruments with effect devices or analogue interference and friction, I am suddenly no longer sure whether it was the piano, the bass or the synthesizer that I had just heard. And suddenly one hears how the individual instruments disperse, each going its own way, playing a solo. Only to cross their paths again and getting entangled into a mass of sound. A mass which goes from harmonic to strong dissonance between the tones. The body of sound in the room is made to vibrate, do Georgieva's works vibrate with it? Do the wooden works and canvases in turn influence the vibration in the room? The performance allows to see the works of Georgieva in a different perspective, and the visitors can wander through associative trains of thought provided by the experimental and unpredictable sounds. M!NDF*CK allows us into a new micro-cosmos of possibilities, the variety of sounds seems inexhaustible.
M!INDF*KC is an experimental improvisation ensemble that began working together in November 2023. In contrast to bands with elaborate aesthetics, we create an unstable network that emphasizes fragility and unstable connections. In our free improvised performances we form a non-linear oscillation system based on feedback processes that are constantly reconfiguring themselves. By responding to each other and to the acoustic environment of the performance space, we explore new ways of playing and producing sound that go beyond the clichés of free improvisation. Although we play very different instruments (bass, piano, electronics), we try to merge our individual sonic worlds into a new common sound, where the boundaries between our personalities become blurred. A mind-blowing experience!
Herbert Lacina (* 1954, Vienna): 12-string bass
Works in the field of jazz and improvisation and plays acoustic and 12-string bass. The artist, whose credo is "For me, music is a stream of energy, free of forms and boundaries", is a member and curator of SFIEMA - Society for Sound Art, Free Improvisation and Experimental Music Austria, a member of Kunstraum Ewigkeitsgasse with its own concert series and curator of the Beethoven event series 2019-2020 in Mödling and a member of IG Bildende Kunst and the Austrian Composers Association. He frequently plays concerts at Celeste, Wiener Künstlerhaus, Porgy & Bess, Forum Stadtpark Graz, Alte Schmiede and many other venues in Vienna and internationally.
Edward Reardon (* 1969, USA): piano
Edward Reardon is an eclectic composer, improviser and producer. He is a versatile mutli-instrumentalist and performer. In addition to being a pianist and guitarist, he has performed extensively with analogue synthesizers, especially the Moog Polymoog, as well as other vintage electric keyboards. Throughout the years, he has performed in many ensembles in a wide variety of situations and styles ranging from Jazz, Free Jazz and avant garde, as well as rock oriented musics. Selected ensembles include Raum-Espacio Ensemble (with Andres Marchetti), 1234, the Richard Nickel transaction Ensemble, and Black Dot. He is also a prolific composer for theater, having contributed primarily in his native Chicago. Playwrights he has worked with have included Beau O’Reilly, Rebecca Gilman and Brett Nevue, as well as many classic playwrights including Shakespeare, Brecht, and Sam Shepard. He currently lives in Vienna.
Karlheinz Essl (* 1960, Vienna): modular synth
Composer/performer, electronic musician, improviser and media artist. He studied composition with Friedrich Cerha and musicology in Vienna. Composer-in-residence at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, IRCAM in Paris and the Salzburg Festival. Since 2007 Professor for Electroacoustic Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In addition to instrumental and live electronic works, he develops generative composition software and sound installations. He has collaborated with artists such as Harald Naegeli ("Sprayer of Zurich") and Jonathan Meese, writers Andreas Okopenko and Erwin Uhrmann, and choreographer Andrea Nagl. Intensive work with immersive 3D soundscapes (book project K.O.P.F., Limbus 2021) and modular synthesizers (Coastlines, 2022 ff). His compositions are performed worldwide by ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, etc.
Olga Georgieva was born in 1986 in Varna, Bulgaria. Lives and works in Vienna. She graduated with honours under Prof. Jan Svenungsson from the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2012. In addition to various exhibitions in Europe, Japan, China and Singapore, she has completed artist in residence programmes in Germany and China and has works in various public and private collections.
