default den haag: announcing initial program third season
default den haag: announcing initial program third season
default den haag is happy to announce the initial program for the third season of their sound series
We are very happy to announce the continuation of our sound series with an exciting program of performances we are keen to bring to The Hague, alongside new collaborations and public talks. You can read the full announcement of our initial program below.
More information on each program and the artists set to perform will follow closer to each event, via our focus newsletters and our “newly” published website.
default x iii, Friday, 11th of October, iii workspace, 8pm | Tickets
Nika Son, Roc Montoriol & Katarina Kadijević, Adomas Pelakas
On Friday, 11th of October, the third season of our sound series will begin with our first event in collaboration with iii (instrument inventors initiative). For our sixteenth program, taking place at iii workspace, we’ve curated an evening of performances by Nika Son, Roc Montoriol & Katarina Kadijević and Adomas Palekas. Within ‘Scatter’ Nika Son uses multi-channel sound, video, objects, and light to explore how our senses adapt in different states, taking interest in sleeplessness – a flickering between fatigue, restlessness and yearning. Roc Montoriol & Katarina Kadijevíc will be presenting their performance ‘Plants, Speaker Cones, Solar Cells, Lasers, and Bluetooth Speakers’ combining an interest in bioacoustics with performativity, to investigate geo-biological entwinements between plants, humans, and places. Adomas Palekas explores growing drones and organic processes beyond our sonic perception in ‘Rehydration: for four electro-organic circuits’, working with electronic circuits and water drops to bridge molecular, electric and sonic bonds.
Saturday, 16th of November, The Grey Space in The Middle, 8pm | Tickets
Tzu Ni, Nick Klein & Makoto Oshiro, lll人 (Daichi Yoshikawa, Paul Abbott, Seymour Wright)
On Saturday, 16th of November, the sound series returns to The Grey Space in The Middle celebrating the special occasion of our two year anniversary featuring performances by Tzu Ni, Nick Klein & Makoto Oshiro, as well as lll人 (Daichi Yoshikawa, Paul Abbott, Seymour Wright). In her work, Tzu Ni finds poetic junctions between spatial and sonic installation work, field recordings, the acoustics of objects and computer-generated noises. An approach that arises from her interest in the relations of “space to sound, sound to body, body to machine, machine to poetry, poetry to space”. The duo of Nick Klein & Makoto Oshiro will be presenting their work with Oshiro’s self-built ‘kachi-kachi’ acoustic machines, self oscillating amps, and radio transmitters-receivers working in relation to Klein’s synths within a reciprocal system navigated by both. Their collaborative work tends to be both dynamic and physical. Completing the bill – the trio lll人 (pronounced /el/) consisting of Daichi Yoshikawa (homemade assemblage electro-acoustic feedback systems), Paul Abbott (real and imaginary drums) and Seymour Wright (actual and potential saxophone). They bring their distinctive, by moments dense and extreme, but always detailed and precise performance style to the 18th edition of default. ‘With lll人 the tools are familiar, the listening is not.’
Friday, the 15th of November, Central Library, 5.30pm | Free Reservation
The event will be accompanied by freely accessible talks by Nick Klein & Makoto Oshiro and Paul Abbott in the Central Library the day before the performances. More information tba.
Saturday, 14th of December, The Grey Space in The Middle, 8pm | Tickets
Zara Joan Miller, Mette Edvardsen, Tom Mudd, Augustė Vickunaitė
We are happy to invite you to the 19th edition of default den haag that will be taking place at The Grey Space in The Middle on the 14th of December. The program will feature artists from various disciplinary backgrounds, engaging in different sound poetics. Zara Joan Miller works across film, poetry and performance, often playing with movement and sound as a way of reimagining a body’s rhythm. Performing with words and projections, her work seeks to unravel boundaries between human and non-human nature. Mette Edvardsen is a choreographer and performer eager to explore the performing arts as a practice and situation, also in relation to other media such as books, writing and sound. In this edition of default den haag, Edversen will bring selected materials from her collaborative work with her daughter Iben Edvardsen ‘Livre d’images sans images’, which involved three different media – vinyl (released via ‘xing’), paper and live performance –, describing scenes, playing tracks of voices from the past, summoning images of moons to come. Augustė Vickunaitė, an affiliate of the venturesome DIY community surrounding the Vilnius ‘Studium P’ venue, uses reel-to-reel tape recorders to play and record, articulating diverse layers of recordings including found material, field recordings, voice, music instruments, objects, and the whole spectrum of malfunctions of decaying technology. Lastly, Tom Mudd will be presenting work in relation to his last year's release – ‘Guitar Cultures’, that features a fascinating take on the use of physical models – digital synthesis processes based on physical simulations of acoustic objects and instruments.
Thursday, 23rd of January, The Grey Space in The Middle, 8pm | Tickets
Sun Yizhou, Zhu Wenbo, Zhao Cong, Able Noise
For the program of default#20, taking place on the 23rd of January in The Grey Space in The Middle, we are delighted to host an evening with three important figures from the open-thinking Beijing experimental music scene as we meander into the new year. Sun Yizhou, Zhu Wenbo and Zhao Cong have all brought forward divergent ‘music unlike music’ ideas to the post-2000 eai discourse, including performances and compositions which defy easy categorisation and approach possible boundaries of music or non-music today. They have initiated such labels as ‘Zoomin’ Night’ (Zhu Wenbo), 'Aloe Records' (Sun Yizhou) as well as affiliated concert programs. As part of their first European tour they will be performing at default in different formations. Zhao Cong in her improvised music uses all kinds of everyday objects (often including balloons), which she amplifies to produce unfamiliar and unexpected sounds. Zhu Wenbo uses various instruments and media to engage in many different music practices, such as: electroacoustic music, tape music, acoustic music, improvisation, composition, and song writing. Sun Yizhou is working with electronic devices, body, objects, instruments, computers, feedback systems and turntables, playing “one or more mis-operated appliances in real-time out of contradiction and uncertainty, in a state of irregularity or homogeneity”. Concluding the lineup, the experimental outfit Able Noise – a cross-continent duo of George Knegtel and Alex Andropoulos based between The Hague (NL) and Athens (GR). For this occasion the duo will prepare an out-of-the-ordinary, electro-acoustic approach driven liveshow. Putting their known alternative methods of playing baritone guitar, drums and voice in relation to a feedback system, which also includes bouzouki, portable playback devices and microphones.
Friday 24th of January, Central Library, hour tba | Free Reservation tba
The concert program will be accompanied by a free conversation and session with Sun Yizhou, Zhu Wenbo, Zhao Cong at the Central Library the following day.
Thursday, 13th of February, The Grey Space in The Middle, 8pm | Tickets
Janneke van der Putten, Weston Olencki & Laura Cocks, Sunik Kim
On Thursday, 13th of February, default den haag will host the final event of this initial program, featuring Janneke van der Putten, a duo performance by Weston Olencki & Laura Cocks, and a concert by Sunik Kim. The Rotterdam-based artist Janneke van der Putten will be presenting her acoustic voice performance ‘Cycles: Overtones and Glottis Attack’. She is specialized in producing two or more sounds simultaneously: basic tones, harmonics, interferences – like glottic attacks – and spatial reflections. Her voice is her main tool, guiding her through physical and sonic explorations in different landscapes, engaging with specific sites and local contexts. The duo of composer-performers Weston Olencki & Laura Cocks will be presenting their two pieces for two flutes, titled ‘Music for Two Flutes’. It involves immense, heavy physicality exploring the instrument with both persistent power and sensitive buzzing – locating sites of intensity and spectral saturation where they aren't always found. Sunik Kim is a musician, writer and filmmaker currently based in Los Angeles, whose music is often described as "a frenzied electronic orchestra that sits somewhere in between free jazz, noise, and Korean shamanic music.” They will be presenting new material that continues their recent route towards a focus on the physicality of pure, computer-generated electronic sounds, where the ‘clear’/’dry’ synthesis approach does not meet the conventional ‘harsh’ computer music tropes and the compositional and structural complexity surfaces.
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Our program is currently financially supported by The Municipality of The Hague and the Konrad Boehmer Foundation. The event in collaboration with iii is financially supported by The Municipality of The Hague and Creative Industries Fund NL.
About Us
default den haag is a non-profit curatorial initiative focused on the presentation of creative contemporary sound and performance in the Hague, curating and organizing their nomadic sound series with an international focus on experimental music and sound art performances since 2022, next to occasionally hosting accompanying talks and lectures. - read more