Staged by DISAPPEARING BERLIN.

Wellenbad am Spreewaldplatz
Wiener Straße 59H, 10999 Berlin

“Unter” is the first collaboration by composer Billy Bultheel and visual artist and instrument maker Viviana Abelson, initiated as collaborative project between Schinkel Pavillon’s performance and music program DISAPPEARING BERLIN and RADIALSYSTEM. Developed as a site-specific performance at Berlin’s only wave pool at Spreewaldplatz, both artists process the three-part architecture of the postmodern swimming pool, designed by Christoph Langhof in 1987, through their individual artistic practices. The ailing pool will be renovated next year while retaining its unique design elements such as columns and roof structure.

Billy Bultheel understands the different halls of the pool as resonance chambers thereby drawing an analogy to the acoustics of baroque architecture, deepening his research on Renaissance compositions and the then common inclusion of architecture in the composition itself: The pool complex thus becomes an architectural extension of an immersive composition. Viviana Abelson, who works with sculptures and installations, designs and builds the instruments for which the music is composed. Her practice in instrument making combines historical research with an industrial perspective to create new sound and instrument-specific performance methods.

The three-part evening extends over several pools on site. Abelson’s sculptural and instrumental interventions meet Bultheel’s site-specific composition for four musicians, whereby the two artists’ common interest in the presence of space in sound and vice versa becomes tangible.

Cast
Billy Bultheel – Composition & Concept / Viviana Abelson – Instruments & Concept / Alexander Iezzi – Percussion / Andi Stecher – Percussion / Rebecca Lane – Flute / Adam Sinclaire – Flute / Max Murray – Serpent

“Unter” is a cooperation between DISAPPEARING BERLIN and RADIALSYSTEM. Both institutions strive to open up their structures and to expand the means and possibilities for cross-disciplinary cooperation outside of their own premises. A satellite by Schinkel Pavillon, the performance and music program DISAPPEARING BERLIN explores architectural and socio-political moments of change in the city of Berlin by temporarily occupying iconic architectures and spaces in transformation. With the “SENSE” program, RADIALSYSTEM explores power relationships within a geography of perception. From the perspective of choreography, visual arts, music and workshop formats, “SENSE” examines an embodied practice of sensory perception.

DISAPPEARING BERLIN is a performance and music program, produced by Schinkel Pavillon, funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).