ULYSSES Collaboratory projects provide new perspectives on creative collaboration, testing new methodologies and forms of cooperation tightly linked to specific contexts and audiences. and reflecting on shared responsibility and collective processes.

Collaboratory “Expect the Unexpected”: The Writing-Game is a Special Program with Bernhard Lang offered to composers participanting in the impuls Academy 2023 in Graz (AT). The goal of the program is to explore the concepts and notions of gaming within the contexts of improvisation and composing.

The program will consist of a group of up to 10 selected participants. It will begin with an initial lecture on gaming, open to all Academy participants, followed by daily workshops that will delve into the concept of gaming, creating new games, rules, and potentially even developing a new game piece. The program will conclude with a final presentation, which could be a newly developed collective game piece or a more theoretical discussion on the topic and process of the working sessions.

Bernhard Lang is a renowned artist known for his extensive artistic creations, research and development. His compositions, such as DW Differenz/Wiederholung, Monadologie, and the more recent GAME series, are a characteristic of his work. Lang’s interest in group improvisation began with the SCAN-Project in 2015, where he collaborated with Klangforum Wien to organize large-scale group improvisations based on his existing compositions by formulating rule-sets for the improvisers. This led to the creation of the “series six” or the GAME pieces in 2016. These pieces explore the meaning of both Game and Play and consist of musical game-situations like card-games. They are designed as self-organizing systems (SOS) and, like most improvisations, omit the conductor. The GAME pieces are made up of individual parts and rulesets for playing with them.

AGENDA

24.7.-30.7.2023 Special Program Collaboratory “Expect the Unexpected”: The Writing-Game at impuls Academy & Festival

30.07.2023 Final presentation

For times and venues see here. 

Bernhard Lang. Photo: Harald Hoffmann