Carte Blanche Simon Grab

It crackles, flashes and hisses - with a dark figure moving in between. Simon Grab's first Carte Blanche evening is almost gloomy. Together with Paula Monesterolo, Miranda Codesal and Jonathan Jäggi, he has created a performance that combines music, dance and live projections to form an organism. The central question: What happens to ecosystems whose habitats are disturbed, destroyed and exploited by humans?

As part of the Moods Carte Blanche and the Videoex Festival for Experimental Film, we will be immersing ourselves in Simon Grab's world of sound on 25 May 2024. As a sound designer and composer, he produces music for film, theatre, dance and radio and uses spaces as acoustic playgrounds - such as the Walcheturm art space. His music is dark, pulsating, noisy and based on technical errors, feedback and sound material that is not always intentional.He was initially drawn to punk and hardcore in his youth (he played in a band with Nik Bärtsch and Kaspar Rast in his high school days), but began experimenting with electronic music through listening and sound experiments at Radio LoRa in the 1990s. When he then discovered jungle and drum'n'bass in England, there was no turning back from experimental electronics.Simon Grab's compositions are influenced by new classical electronic music from the 1950s to 1970s, as well as techno, dub and noise and everything that blurs boundaries. In his work, he is primarily concerned with viewing technology and his equipment as an open tool. Movinh away from rigid machine thinking, away from conventions and clean methods and towards gaps, mistakes and radical rethinking.

Fractura

What does it sound like underground when oil dissolves from shale?
What happens to ecosystems that are subject to capitalist exploitation?
How does a living being adapt to a new space?Fractura is a one-hour scenic and immersive audiovisual exploration of organisms that emerge, perceive and discover the sound space created by Simon Grab.The piece is about the destruction of ecosystems through capitalist extraction processes. Fracking in particular serves as an example here. Although this particularly problematic oil extraction method is already banned in many countries, it is still used in Argentina, the home country of choreographer Paula Monesterolo and dancer Miranda Codesal. For example, in the Vaca Muerta formation in the province of Neuquén, where fracking has a direct impact on the biota and the population and leads to precarious living conditions for people and the environment.

Music

Through Simon's raw sounds, Fractura creates a dystopia, a space where a break in the natural balance occurs, where life becomes toxic. A dense and noisy atmosphere brings a creature to life: A cyborg born from these depths.

Choreography

The narrative focuses on this body, which goes through various states, moods and challenges in order to find its way in this new ecosystem.

Visual Space

Jonathan Jäggi's visual representations show virtual and pixelated landscapes to create the impression of a constantly "updating" space. The creature explores this new space by either being framed by the screen or projecting itself into it.

The performance takes place as part of the Videoex Festival takes place. Videoex is the largest experimental film festival in Switzerland. From 23 May to 2 June, Videoex will be showing films and videos beyond conventional narrative cinema: experimental, visually surprising, conceptually unexpected or controversially political films and videos on the threshold between fine art and film. In addition, four live acts will also be performing in "Expanded Cinema".We can't wait to see what else Simon Grab's Carte Blanche has in store for us.