Collaborate

The Darmstadt Summer Course, which will be marking its 50th anniversary in 2020, is dedicated to the forms and conditions of artistic-musical collaboration. Collective forms of collaboration and participation have played an increasingly important role in the visual arts, theatre, dance and performance in recent years. Creative trans- and interdisciplinary working methods have been the focus of growing interest in the music scene as well. In the area of composition, the idea of (sole) authorship is still strongly valued, but even here alternative developments can be observed – especially in the increasing trend toward performative, site- and situation-specific works. The Darmstadt Summer Course will address this topic in a two-week festival – a summer school – to which numerous international experts have been invited. In lecture series, film programmes, sound camps, installations and other innovative presentation formats and concerts, the artists will have the opportunity to present and discuss their collaborative practices. In 2012 the British-American sociologist Richard Sennett published a book entitled “Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation” which examines the underpinnings of successful cooperation. At the festival, he and his research network “Theatrum Mundi” will open a several-day laboratory which will present music as a model for social processes. The project by Jennifer Walshe and Memo Akten will investigate what musical collaboration between humans and an artificial intelligence might look like. Antye Greie-Ripatti and Cedrik Fermont will present practices of experimental electronic music from Africa and Asia. And in projects by Tarek Atoui and the ensemble Musikfabrik, the artists will shed light on the significance of new instrumentation for musical interactions.

Artistic director: Thomas Schäfer

Participants: Memo Akten & Jennifer Walshe, Tarek Atoui, Cohort, Natacha Diels & Ensemble Pamplemousse, Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Cedrik Fermont & Antye Greie-Ripatti, Myriam Van Imschoot & HYOID, Cathy Milliken, Richard Sennett & Theatrum Mundi and others