Berlin Atonal defies the conventions of each a pageant and an exhibition. It doesn’t comply with a unifying curatorial theme; as a substitute, the expertise is pushed by sound and its interplay with area, working extra like a rave than a white dice exhibition.
The occasion was just lately recognised by the Biennial Basis as the primary biennial “rooted in music and sound”, resulting in questions on what it means to centre experimental sound in a visible tradition setting. And the timing of this recognition was not incidental—in 2024 Berlin’s techno tradition was added to Germany’s register of UNESCO cultural heritage.
With this yr’s pageant bought out on the normally music-focused ticketing platform Resident Advisor, the necessity to collapse the categorisation of artwork, music, and movie is obvious. However how efficiently does Atonal push the boundaries of visible tradition, and the place does this sit inside a Berlin more and more outlined by censorship and political oversight?
“The music feels actually large”
For the pageant’s co-director Laurens von Oswald, the programme’s defiance of neat categorisation is deliberate. “What’s a music pageant, what’s an artwork exhibition? Why are these classes so mounted? Ought to they be?” he asks.
“One factor we’ve been obsessive about is consideration: how folks expertise issues within the second. Lots of what occurs on the pageant is created on-site, within the area, typically on the final second. It’s alive and chaotic in a great way.”
The Kraftwerk constructing, a decommissioned energy station, shapes Atonal’s ambiance. On getting into, guests are dwarfed by concrete as sound thrums via the air. “You simply really feel extraordinarily small, and the music feels actually large,” says artist Billy Bultheel.
Talking of his new work Fugue State, the second chapter in his Brief Historical past of Decay sequence, he continues: “I like to work with area as an instrument itself in my work.” In the meantime 4 musicians and one electronics operator play a self-built instrument modelled on a medieval resonating urn, leading to an atmospheric, sonic strain system for the viewers to inhabit.
Kamal Al Jafari, College
Courtesy of Artist
The bodily and the temporal
Atonal thrives within the intersections: one second a live performance, the subsequent an set up, after which one thing solely in-between. In its third House setting, artists together with Anne Imhof, Cyprien Gaillard and Mohamed Bourouissa are introduced collectively throughout the 5 pageant nights, with some listening rooms within the former energy station management rooms. In contrast to a standard gallery, Atonal recalibrates length, asking guests to expertise sound as a bodily and temporal expertise.
“We deal with sound as a totally official artwork type—not background, however central,” says von Oswald. “Our background is in sound, and over time we realised how a lot sound influences artists who normally work within the visible arts. A lot of them dream of presenting their work to hundreds of individuals, as a substitute of the small trickle [of sound] you get in a gallery.”
Basma AlSharif, O’PERSECUTED
Courtesy of Artist
Political strain
In current months, cultural establishments throughout Germany thought of to be supportive of Palestinian artists and causes have come beneath mounting political scrutiny. Taking part Palestinian artist Basma al-Sharif, whose work encompasses movie, set up, and efficiency, is conscious about this local weather. Her 2014 movie O’Persecuted, a part of Atonal’s programme, resonates as we speak.
“After I moved [to Berlin], I didn’t perceive how hostile the terrain actually was,” she says. “After [the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October 2023] I realised it’s way more violent and aggressively aimed toward silencing narratives. The toughest blow has been within the cultural sector. Berlin had been a beacon of freedom of speech. Since [the war began], it’s been a wasteland.”
Al-Sharif’s work is offered at Atonal alongside friends reminiscent of Noor Abed and Kamal Aljafari. “Our work isn’t simply being pigeonholed as political commentary—it’s engaged with as artwork, ” she says.
In the end, Atonal is much less a radical rethinking of visible tradition than a reconfiguration of how cultural manufacturing is organised and consumed. By refusing the thematic mannequin, it sidesteps the didacticism of many biennials, providing as a substitute a looser constellation of works, atmospheres, and intensities. For some, this ambiguity might really feel evasive; for others, it resonates with a cultural current outlined by collapse and hybridity.
If the biennial type is in disaster, then Atonal’s refusal to repair which means in place is likely to be its most boundary-pushing gesture. Not an answer, however a refusal to thematise, and as a substitute, a terrain of sound, area, and motion during which audiences should orient themselves. And, though this orientation feels unresolved, this can be exactly the purpose.
Berlin Atonal, Kraftwerk, Berlin, till 31 August
