The workshop with Thomas Köner is both a practical and theoretical encounter. It focuses on the understanding of the locus of the listener's position.

The listener's position is a strangely elusive ground on which all musical practices lay claim.

The practice of Field Recording, for example, assumes and promotes a reality (the cause) of which the recorded sounds appear as effect. Field Recording needs a listener, a forced witness. A position is therefore rigorously assigned to the listener.

A similar -yet reversed- power structure is at work in the spatialisation practices of Electronic Music, where positions in space are assigned to the emersion of sounds.

But in fact there is always a gap between the assignment and the actual. This gap remains Unerforschtes Gebiet (uncharted territory).

Thomas Köner's understands the listener's position not as a particular spot but as a wave function. The wave's oscillator is rather psychophysical than synthesized, and emanates always from the wavetable of mind. The listener's position is gradually dissolved by the inescapable gravity that transforms all sensuousness into thought, all thought into memories and all memories into remembrance.

The firmament becomes a mirror that reflects routes and maps, as if a land that can be reached could ever be a true New Land.

The workshop is open for all. A reading list will be provided for the participants' preparations.

About Thomas Köner

Thomas Köner (1965, Bochum) studied at Musikhochschule Dortmund and CEM Studio Arnhem. He is working across the spheres of audiovisual arts, installation work and music production, and excelled in all the areas of his artistic activity, receiving awards such as Golden Nica Prix Ars Electronica (Linz), Transmediale Award (Berlin), Best Young Artist at ARCO (Madrid), and many more. His familiarity with both the visual and sonic arts resulted in numerous commissions to create music for silent films for the Auditorium du Musée du Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Centre Pompidou, and others. Likewise, he created installations for diverse situations for example ISEA International Symposium on Electronic Art and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes Santiago de Chile. His works are part of the collections of significant museums such as Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou Paris, Musée d'art contemporain, Montréal. Thomas Köner is continuing his close relationship with sound art by creating radiophonic works for the national Radio in Germany and France (Deutschlandradio Kultur, WDR Studio Akustische Kunst, SWR, Radio France), while also working as a live performer and composer. His recordings are released by Touch and Denovali. As producer of Porter Ricks he is one of the pioneers of Dub Techno and currently signed to Tresor Records Berlin (current album Anguilla Electrica TRESOR 295, July 2017).

¿How to enroll?

There are limited places. Participation is free of charge. Participants will be selected in conjunction with the artist. A cerftificate of attendance will be awarded.

Only electronic submissions are accepted. Please submit a curriculum vitae of up to two pages in English, which can include web links to portfolio images or projects. A brief statement of interest can be included. Document must not be larger than 2 MB and in word or pdf compatible formats. Email subject must be "Thomas Köner Workshop".

Workshop will be conducted in English.

Deadline for submissions is 24th of October, selected participants will be informed that week.

Workshop is open for all.

Please send application: actividades.c3a@juntadeandalucia.es

Photo credit: Portrait of the artist. Foto by Roger NBH