PORTALE - SoundS UdK @ Planetarium Berlin
Portale 2024
The event PORTALE, a collaborative project between the UdK SoundS Master programme and the DSSA DCN programme of École Estienne de Paris. Portale 2024 will showcase an evening of immersive audio-visual artworks in full dome projection with 360° ambisonics sound. 13 works for frameless media by students from both institutions will repurpose the planetarium’s 23-metre-high dome, and make full use of the ten ZEISS VELVET video projectors, 49 speaker and 4 subwoofer soundsystem to create three-dimensional immersive artworks, from journeys into artificial worlds to generative explorations of colour, space and sound. The works screened at Portale 2024 will also be shown at the SOUS DÔME festival at Planetarium de la Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris in March 2025.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: Sympoietic being // Artists: Arthur Wardenski + Vicente Yáñez // Duration: 8’30” // A crystal entity that becomes self- aware. This awareness brings the possibility of connection, of belonging, of being mirrored by the other. The experience of the cave becomes an exploration, a discovery as it unfolds in different possibilities, veiling a mysterious purpose. By this becoming, the network with a whole becomes apparent, hinting a connection to a higher self. Through the reflections and the lights, we perceive a pulse that synchronizes the web, translating that connection to the viewer through sound
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: realm // Artists: Titouan Bessenay + Thomas Lea Clarke + Kulku // Duration: 7’24” // realm is a reactive audiovisual artwork in which the relationships between sound, space and colour are explored in an immersive environment. Source materials from ambisonic recording sessions with Berlin-based band Kulku are processed and translated into a three dimensional sensory experience where colour and spatial audio interact and merge
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: fissure dermis // Artists: Maggi B Smith + Geoffrey Scott // Duration: 3’20” // fissure dermis aims to bridge the mid- 18th century, a time when Romanticists responded to the diminishing rationalism of the Enlightenment, with 2024, an era in which the Post-Internet art movement addresses the erosion of traditional work ethics and life values amidst the overwhelming influence of the internet on daily life. Just as skin serves as a medium that records and reflects our experiences, art captures the profound cultural transformations that connect these two significant periods in human history.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: PAY // Artists: Gene Fin + Lynn Simamora + Xviinash // Duration: 4’33” // “Pay” is a trailer for a video-game that falls within the mystery and quest genres. Dream logic is partially used for the protagonist’s progression in the game. In the process of solving the puzzles of the game, the character unlocks specific skills by the way of elucidating its emotional associations, fear and memories. The core mechanics of the game revolve around the player's ability to interact with the game’s environment using a brain-computer interface utilizing EEG signals to control gameplay and is focusing primarily on attention and imagination skills of the player.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: MORPH // Artists: Cléo Tétart + Rachel Truchot + Nithin Shams // Duration: 4’04” // An audio-visual exploration of the evolution of life on Earth. Organic forms shift and morph, illustrating the interconnectedness of all species, from cellular origins to complex ecosystems.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: This is A Sentence // Artist: Damián Noguera // Duration: 6’10” // This is a sentence. This is the angle between the ecliptic and the meridian. This is a voice and all the repeated phrases that give it a form. This is the time that expires between one word and the other. This is the world drowned in the world. This is a sound pretending to be another sound. This is the earth in the middle of the heavens. This is the silence that follows unexpected events. These are the words that suffocate the air.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: A Body from Somewhere // Artists:Rémi Avignon + Loris Foti // Duration: 7’20” // Remains of a recalcitrant body, degraded to constituent components, now an ore carcass belonging to a place, somewhere. As a current discharge bursts through, its cores implode into emulated sensations and emotions, which were once input from its fibrous and aqueous vessel. Memory can be described as electric impulses summoned by willpower, sometimes impetuous, but sometimes fogged and fragmented.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: Cuerpos en mi cuerpo // Artist: Nicole Luján // Duration: 4’00” // Cuerpos en mi cuerpo imagines the dome as a womb and the audience that enters it as the continuous exchange between the corporeal and the world around us.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: Anxiety Through a Mnemonic Bridge // Artists: Titouan Boireau + Kurt Reinartz Salgado + Mathieu Trehin // Duration: 5’30” // This piece explores the existential crisis of individuals in a digitally hyperconnected world. The constant influx of information through social media and the internet overwhelms global consciousness, numbing society to critical issues like the climate crisis, authoritarian repression, and rising fascism. This work exposes the absurdity of post-capitalism, a wretched pit of cynicism and pure ridicule.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: Flux // Artists: Zoé Pouvreau + Flore Wodey + Basile Leckner // Duration: 3’36” // Metamorphosis of a simple droplet in an eternal cycle of transformation. Through interplays of light, movement, and perspective, we invite the viewer to contemplate. We aim to create something highly abstract. We were inspired by the idea of working with a variety of textures and sensory experiences. Our goal is to transform music into a visual form.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: Röya // Artists: Farhad Farzali + Eloïse Gonin + MAF + Andréa Terroso // Duration: 04’33” // Under a white sky, black bubbles are born and drift until one, denser than the others, envelops them, transporting the viewer into an unsettling underwater world. A sinuous creature emerges, its gaze locking with the viewer’s, unleashing horror before engulfing everything. Suddenly, a dreamlike universe, bursting with colour and life, appears —soothing yet laced with an underlying tension. As dream and nightmare merge, the worlds collapse, leaving behind only the echo of illusion.
source: Kathrin Scheidt
Title: and not every dream is remembered // Artist: Tuce Alba // Duration: 7’52” // This project explores the transition of geometric shapes and planar lines from a 2D surface to a 3D dome environment. The integration of sound and visual elements challenges the viewer’s comfort, shifting perceptions from discomfort to acceptance
source: Kathrin ScheidtArtists: Tuce Alba, Rémi Avignon + Loris Foti, Titouan Bessenay + Thomas Lea Clarke + Kulku, Titouan Boireau + Kurt Reinartz Salgado + Mathieu Trehin, Farhad Farzali + Eloïse Gonin + MAF + Andréa Terroso, Gene Fin + Lynn Simamora + Xviinash, Nicole Luján, Damián Noguera, Zoé Pouvreau + Flore Wodey + Basile Leckner, Nithin Shams + Cléo Tétard + Rachel Trucot, Maggie B Smith + Geoffrey Scott, Arthur Wardenski + Vicente Yañez.
Project lead:
Prof. Daisuke Ishida (SoundS UdK, Berlin)
Mehdi Hercberg (DSAA DCN École Estienne, Paris)
Stephane Laporte (DSAA DCN École Estienne, Paris)
Martin Sulzer (SoundS UdK, Berlin)
Supported by: InKüLe UdK Berlin
Artwork: Kathrin Scheidt
Read about the first edition of this project here