BIOSPHERE

BIOSPHERE is an immersive concert series in urban space. Cyclists question the city as a sound sphere and interrogate its power effects and implications. Who has access to the acoustic arenas of everyday life? What shapes the sound of (a) city?

Conny Zenk, Gischt, Verena Dürr, Ramona Cidej, and Matthias Hurtl develop a multi-channel sound experience for their vegetative, technoid, and velophilic contemporaries.

A swarm of cyclists with mobile loudspeakers moves along the Danube to Floridsdorf. Starting from the last piece of the Danube forest, tightly surrounded by residential buildings, we hear the noisy vibrations of the city. The ambient sounds tell of an intact environment. The acoustic appearance, the soundscape that surrounds us, is an indicator of the state of a system.

Sound excerpts and atmospheres of the city form the basis for the soundtrack of BIOSPHERE. Electrosmog clouds glimmer above the traveling drones of urban infrastructure—fragments of voices and poetry overlay long-forgotten territories. Distorted sounds, cross our paths, stretch and amplify them. Traces of sounds connect conversations with places and patterns of memory.

How can cities be reimagined through collective listening?

“Understanding sound as relational, as what may traffic across acoustics and electronics, bodies and machines, supporting contact with the world.” – Brandon LaBelle, Acoustic Justice, 2021

Route

Route: Start: Corner of Engerthstrasse and Holubstrasse, 1020 Vienna to Floridsdorf, Schlingermarkt, 1210 Vienna

Team

RAD Performers on Soundbikes: Bull, Pina, Laura, Elena, Beo, Krähe, Ines, Gulnaz | Support by Hermes Radbot*innen
Live concert: Flonky Chonks
Performance: Suzie Léger
Text & poetry: Verena Dürr
Sound Art: Gischt, Conny Zenk, Matthias Hurtl

Artistic Director: Conny Zenk
Technical direction: Georg Hartl
Production Coordination: Lena Kauer | der goldene shit
Philosophical framework: Ramona Cidej
Fashion: Birgit Rampula / amateur
On-site recording: Conny Zenk, Gischt
Outside Eye: Rahel Kraft
Video: Ioana Tarchila
Editing: Chris Schratt
Graphic Design: Hannah Mayr

Production: a_maze | HAZE

Thanks to: bird.at – Martin Riesing, Martin Färber, Harald Illsinger, Elke Rauth, Christina Schraml, Paul Adrian Schulz, Margit Spacek, Hermes Radbot*innen, Kunstkanal, Lastenradkollektiv, Red Carpet

Funded by BMKÖS – Frischluft, Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien (MA 7), KÖR – Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien