In-Situ/City: Graz
In ULYSSES InSitu/City projects, young artists explore various European cities, creating closer relationships with their inhabitants, history, places, politics, culture and social contexts. impuls Academy and Festival 2023 hosts InSitu/City: Graz. Georgia Koumara participates to InSity/City: Graz in the framework of her ULYSSES Journey together with other young composers like Julian Siffert, but also Mauro Hertig and Loïc Destremeau, both of whom have been supported by the ULYSSES Network between 2016-2020. The four composers were commissioned by impuls to set up a dramaturgically coherent concept, including of course their newly created works for this occasion.
The City of Graz enjoys a very strong tradition in the avantgarde after WW2, with Forum Stadtpark being an early center for artistic, scientific, and political activities and confrontations already back in the late 50s. Today, Forum Stadtpark is a sociopolitically active center situated in the midst of the city park, a contested area populated by fringe groups, people with drug addiction and homeless people, while targeted at the same time by real estate developers and the expulsion efforts of right-wing parties.
Thus working at Forum Stadtpark and using it as both symbol and venue for the InSitu/City activities means engaging with the daring and experimental heritage of the avantgarde and at the same time being artistically engaged in a socially tense context.
In-Situ/Graz . Club-Cafe Forum
Guided by ideas of intensity, flow, movement and spatiality, Club-Cafe Forum is a music theatre project that exploress the architecture and history of Forum Stadtpark and its predecessor, the Conrad Wirth Cafe im Stadtpark. On three consecutive evenings, it transforms the entire building into a stage, , featuring new compositions by Mauro Hertig, Georgia Koumará, Loïc Destremau, and Julian Siffert, performed by Ensemble hand werk. Furthermore, Club-Cafe Forum offers a bar as a hangout spot after each performance in the cellar of Forum Stadtpark, as well as a Night Line Party on May 26th.
Premiere + further performances, 24.-26.7.2023, Forum Stadtpark
hand werk
Daniel Agi flute
Heni Hyunjung Kim clarinet
Jae A Shin violin
Niklas Seidl cello
Forum Stadtpark in Graz. Photo: Max Höffler.
In situ – translucent spaces
impuls Academy 2023
Special Program with Klaus Lang
23.7.-3.8.2023
Selection of participants tba
Presentation August 2023, various places in Graz
In extension of the Ulysses impuls project InSitu/ City: Graz, participants of the impuls Academy 2023 are invited to engage with the in Situ/City topic and develop smaller projects on-site under the guidance of Klaus Lang. Ensemble hand werk and commissioned composers Loïc Destremau, Mauro Hertig, Georgia Koumará, and Julian Siffert are also involved.
The general idea and starting point for this Academy Special Program is to develop new definitions of musical spaces through happenings positioned on the borderline of concert, installation, and performance. Space arises from sound, is defined by sound, and vice versa: sound develops into a translucent space, which is influenced and shaped by the site, itself defined by its own sounds, noises, and specific performance conditions. Not only the space, but also the temporality of the site is influenced and changed by sound and the sound’s own temporality.
A central point of this special program is to work with what can be found at a specific site, without intruding or imposing, and to carefully and gently interfere with what is found so as to emphasise and modulate sounds them. In this way, a huge but dense network of sound spaces is created, which also defines a city. Participants are free to decide on and work with a specific place, but the whole group will also develop a concept together, which will influence and be influenced by the individual projects.
Find more information here.