Kat was invited to be one of the 30 artists contributing to this momentous celebration of 30 years of the marvellous Neural Magazine and 20 years of the great Crónica music label.
Natural rhythms are key to Kat’s compositions, which are often led by emerging rhythms from soundscapes in which she immerses herself during field recording research.
Challenged with producing a track of only 9s in length for the 30+20 album, published on flexidisc along with Neural issue 74, Kat leverages the synergy between music and mathematics, focussing on evolving rhythm. For Golden Acceleration, Kat created a track that increases its rhythm according to the golden ratio. Using field recorded samples edited for aesthetics and effect, the piece evolves through 9 until the gap between the tones is no longer perceptible.
Kat will headline the Leaky Earth programme at Technische Sammlung Dresden with The Matter of the Soul | Symphony. For this special performance, Kat has invited Korean media artist Dongjoo Seo to perform live visuals drawing on explorations of mining landscapes and transformation of bodies. The evening begins with screenings of films by the inimitable Rosa Barba.
Solidarity Fund · Hydro In the wake of devastating floods that hit Slovenia in early August, many find themselves without homes and irreplaceable memories. In partnership with Kamizdat Label, we wish to lend a helping hand to these resilient people by curating an online audio compilation that features the generous contributions of artists who have donated their music to this cause. All financial contributions from the sale of the compilation will be sent to the flood relief fund of the Volunteer Fire Fighting Society, Črna na Koroškem. Our hearts go to those who depend on gestures of solidarity at the time of our planetary transformations.
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Solidarnostni sklad · Hidro
Po uničujočih poplavah, ki so Slovenijo prizadele v začetku avgusta, so mnogi ostali brez domov in nenadomestljivih spominov. V sodelovanju z založbo Kamizdat želimo tem vztrajnim ljudem ponuditi pomoč s spletno zvočno kompilacijo, na kateri so zbrani prispevki umetnikov, ki so za ta namen darovali svojo glasbo. Vse finančne prispevke od prodaje kompilacije bomo nakazali v sklad Prostovoljnega gasilskega društva Črna na Koroškem. Naša srca so z vsemi, ki so odvisni od solidarnostnih gest v času naših planetarnih sprememb.
OR poiesis · Tsuki no jūryoku Brandon LaBelle · Planetary Listening Brane Zorman · The Tree Spirits I Touch (excerpt) Bojana Šaljić P. · The Last Animal / Ujjayi * Toni Dimitrov · A Night at Letea Karmen Ponikvar · Look, the snowflakes are moving upwards (excerpt) Mauricio Valdés San Emeterio · Ejarbe ** Dronišnica · It’s Time to Drink Water Kikiriki · Drop Brgs · Mushroom Therapy (remix) Irena Pivka · EchoWalk Kat Austen · Multifurcation (Movement 4 from The Matter of the Soul Symphony) Hugo Lioret · Interchange [43.961436, 1.019804] Lena Ortega · Dandelion David Bilek · Intermezzo for a Confused Dragonfly mʊdʌki · soft txt I mʊdʌki · soft txt II Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec · Lost Algoritmhs Saša Spačal · Anatomy of a Symbiosis: Slicing 12 Miha Godec · Echoing Tides Shekuza · Stay Strong AGF · Elemental Slovenia Zergon · Pralik Sujevera · River Tensions Manja Ristić · Schwarze Aist [Austrian––Czech Borderlands, July 2023] Luka Prinčič ·coHydrogen beepblip · Voluminous Movement of a Watery Earth (excerpt) Robertina Šebjanič · hydro_Agitations
* Ocean breath
** Increase of the volume of water in rivers due to heavy rainfall.
credits
released September 1, 2023
Robertina Šebjanič, Ida Hiršenfelder · curators, graphic design Luka Prinčič · mastering Luka T. Zagoričnik, Luka Prinčič · executive production, promotion
Flow Over Water Borders (2019) Walls Have Ears ARS Art Factory Tallinn, Estonia
10th – 18th February 2023
“Flow Over Water Borders” by Kat Austen is presented as a 4-channel sound installation that explores fluidity of identity in relation to borders. Paracelsus famously said of all substances “It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.” Borders constrain and divide, they are often contested, policed, enforced. Yet they also protect, define, collect… Their value is in the way that they and their permeability are navigated.
Drawing parallels between urban life for young people and the changes to water as it passes through the city, this sound artwork sheds light on the meaning of boundaries, the fluid nature of the self and the eternal navigation of the individual as part of society.
The artwork is based on participatory artistic research focussed on the Panke River in Berlin with local school pupils. Realised through DIY Hack the Panke’s Science by Doing with Art Laboratory Berlin.
On Saturday Kat will be playing alongside Anders Duckworth’s performance of Mapping Gender as part BALTIC is Curious. Kat has collaborated with Anders on Mapping Gender over the last 2.5 years, creating the sound and music for this exhibition of performance, image, sound and research. It’s an invitation to see the parallels between cartography and clothing, to explore how society controls, shapes and demarcates both landscapes and human bodies – all told through the lens of non-binary experiences.
In creating the soundscape over the last two years Kat has carried out research in liminal spaces – at coasts, riversides and boundaries. In Saturday’s performance, she will use her hacked scientific equipment to play sounds from a water sample that she collected from the Baltic Sea in December last year alongside water from outside the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.
Between 25th October and 5th November 2019, the Cyprus Chamber of Fine Art will be running Perceiving Academy 686, an exploration of the Cyprus ecosystem.
“Distant clamours break on the timeless towers like the sea.”
From Aphrodite by Howard Mumford Jones
Kat Austen will provide to participants a site-specific audio walk “Listening to the Distant Clamours” and DIY hydrophones, to facilitate an sound-based research into the political and physical landscape of the Cyprus coastline.
How does the water change when people act upon it?
How do we personally change when we interact with other people?
We all have borders. Learning how to navigate them is important. Wether we are overcoming personal hurdles or opening up to others, the process creates changes in both ourselves and others.
“Flow Over Water Borders” at the Staatsoper Berlin, explores the parallel between urban life for young people and the changes occurring in water as it passes through the city. The sound installation explores the meaning of boundaries, the fluid nature of the self and the eternal navigation of the individual as part of society.
Audio recordings were created with class 7c during a co-creation workshop investigating the Panke River in Berlin Wedding as part of the project “DIY Hack the Panke” (Art Laboratory Berlin). Recordings were taken using special instruments developed by the artist, Kat Austen, which generate sounds from the measurement of chemical properties of water.
Kat will be working during the week of 20th May with students from the Gustav-Freytag-Schule to make sound recordings from water using her hacked scientific instruments and DIY hydrophones, as part of the DIY Hack the Panke project. These recordings will be composed, along with piano compositions with the school’s Klavier AG, into a sound installation at the Berlin Staatsoper in June 2019.
