This Land is Not Mine | Album Performance

4th December 2021 at 7pm (1 hour)

Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst
Uferstrasse / Am Amtsteich 15
03046 Cottbus

How is the identity of Lusatia changing in the context of structural change in the region? This Land is Not Mine is an artistic research project by the artist Kat Austen, presented as an installation and an album of experimental music. Over a year and a half, Austen has explored the soundscapes of Lusatia, and has invited residents to an online platform where they contribute the sounds that characterise the landscape.

Austen uses scientific instruments that have been adapted to make sound, alongside hydrophones, to listen to the water and soil in Lusatia, including during a public workshop at the BLMK in September 2020.
From these recordings, Austen creates musical compositions that include traditional musical instruments, to create a full album that explores the various stories she has discovered in Lusatia throughout her research here.

In this closing performance of the Strukturwandel Exhibition at the BLMK, Austen will play for the first time the entire album and two bonus tracks. Austen will play her specially adapted scientific instruments using local water samples, alongside video projections contextualising the soundscapes, to create an immersive and moving journey through contemporary Lusatia.

Please check the BLMK website for current hygiene regulations

Pre-order This Land is Not Mine album

‘Seeds’ from the album ‘This Land is Not Mine’ were aired on ‘As If Radio’ as part of their COP26 Programme.

This work focuses on the region of Lusatia, where Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic meet, the home of the Sorbian minority group. This project explores identity in a region of co-existing cultures that is undergoing fundamental socio-economic changes as brown coal mining in the region is phased out. Engaging with landscapes that are recovering from extraction give a hint to how we might face the challenges of the climate crisis, and a route towards creating a shared identity in the face of ecological crisis. The album ‘This Land is Not Mine’ is available for pre-order on Bandcamp, release date 10th December.

Kat Austen and Francisca Rocha Goncalves will be part of the Berlin Science Week with the livestream of “Blumen! Die Wissenschaftsshow” from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

Their video will, based on their work and research at Leibniz Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei (IGB), focusses on More-than-Human Subjectivities on noise and light pollution.

This event can be attended digitally via livestream or in person at the Museum für Naturkunde with a limited number of participants.

Friday, November 5th at 4 pm – 5:30 pm

The event will take place in German and English.

We are delighted that ‘The Matter of the Soul  | Symphony’ video has been acquired by the collection of Zachęta Lower Silesian Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts.

‘The Matter of the Soul  | Symphony’ video installation will be shown as part of the exhibition ‘What after / What for’ which is opening at the Contemporary Museum (Muzeum Współczesne) in Wrocław, Poland, on October 1st at 6 p.m. The exhibition features a new fragment of the constantly expanding contemporary art collection of the Zachęta Lower Silesian Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. This year’s selection covers an area that used to be given relatively little importance in contemporary art, focusing on works connected with environmental thought in the 21st century. 

The exhibition lasts until December 27th, 2021.

Participating artists: Kat Austen, Julia Curyło, Andrzej Klimczak-Dobrzaniecki, Andrzej Kosowski, Weronika Lucińska, Zofia Martin, Monika Polak, Zygmunt Rytka

Curated by Jagoda Łagiewska

What after / What for
1st October – 27th December 2021

Contemporary Museum (Muzeum Współczesne) Wrocław
Strzegomski 2a, 53-681 Wrocław, Poland
Contact: +48 71 356 42 57, mww@muzeumwspolczesne.pl
Open on Mon., Wed.-Fri., Sun. 12 a.m.–6 p.m. Sat. 12 a.m.–8 p.m. Tue. closed

‘The Matter of the Soul | Installation’ is opening at IZIS Festival “2200 UND3R” at Libertas, Koper September 24th. The opening will be at Libertas, the crossroads of Koper’s urban culture (Kopališko nabrežje, Koper), at 8 p.m.

This year’s festival edition, 2200 UND3R, addresses the climate crisis, more precisely the impact already being reflected in the increasing frequency of flooding in coastal cities due to the rising of middle sea water levels.

The 9th edition of the festival will take place until October 15th, 2021.

The project “This Land is not Mine” moves into new acoustic spheres between electronic music, soundscape and video projection. In a changing Lausitz it follows the Sorbian footsteps and wonders what is to come.

Live concert is on September 18th, 2021 at 8 p.m. and 8:50 p.m. in Gladhouse Cottbus, streamed via RBB website.

The album ‘This Land is not Mine’ will be released in the autumn.

Open science has received a lot of attention over the last decade. But what about open artistic research?

From a starting point of collaboration between people of diverse backgrounds, the STUDIOTOPIA Palaeoplasticene project hosted by Studio  Austen  is developing a platform to facilitate transdisciplinary artistic research by non-artists into the long-term existence of microplastic. Designed to be adaptable to multiple artistic research contexts and to be re-deployable by other researchers, this platform development highlights the unique challenges, and rigour, of artistic research. During the launch of the platform, artist Kat  Austen, scientists Indrė Žliobaite and Laurence Gill will join Ars Electronica’s Andrew Newman to discuss transdisciplinary collaboration and open research. Web development is undertaken by Andreas Baudisch.

The session “Art-led participatory platform for transdisciplinary open research” will take place on September 10th at 1 p.m at Ars Electronica website.

INTER/her is an intimate VR immersive exploration of the inner world of middle-aged women’s bodies and the post-reproductive diseases they suffer, such as endometriosis, fibroids, polyps, Ovarian and other cysts, cervical, ovarian, uterine and endometrial cancers – with a focus on female health as personal exploration, conversation starter, and community building. Kat composed the sonic environment and music for the project, which will be presented by Camille Baker and Maf’j Alvarez.

This demo will be in place of in-person experience – so Camille Baker will do a short artist introduction and then show a video of her putting on the haptic corset a person, explain the controls and guiding them into the physical experience inside the actual tent and then afterward followed by a live screen-casting of the actual VR experience for alive audience and then followed by some pre-recorded video of visitors experiences inside the tent and VR experience. Followed by any Q&A from the audience.

Join on September 10th at 5 p.m. through Ars Electronica’s website.

The Werkleitz Festival 2021 move to… sociosphere, ecosphere, bodydatasphere is a correspondence location of the 2021 Ars Electronica. In the past 4 years the artists and collectives at 11 institutions of the European Media Art Platform have been researching the most urgent challenges of our age. Kat Austen will take part in the programme with her work ‘Stranger to the Trees‘ at the livestream EMAP Garden: move to… ecosphere and online exhibition.

The contributions of the ecosphere shed light on the consequences of the digitalisation of our ecosystem, knowledge generated by a shift in perspective away from humans and towards other life forms, and the opportunities for “peaceful co-existence” and cooperation between species.

The livestream of the programme EMAP Garden: move to… ecosphere in the context of Ars Electronica 2021 can be seen on Werkleitz and Ars Electronica website on 10th September at 8 p. m.

The virtual closing exhibition will feature 44 works that have been produced with the support of Creative Europe. It will open on Werkleitz website from 8th until 12th September.