Collapsing Borders - Einstürzende Grenze

Markus Guentner (Regensburg)



nospectacle (Detroit)




Video and Performance Studio
Duderstadt Center, University of Michigan
2281 Bonisteel Blvd

November 20
6 - 9 p.m.
Free


This special audio-visual live electronics presentation features a North American exclusive: an appearance by Markus Guentner, a German artist known as an innovator of the pop ambient sound for Cologne's Kompakt label, with Detroit-based digital dub stylists nospectacle.

The performance, Collapsing Borders - Einstürzende Grenze, at the University of Michigan's Duderstadt Center will include composed and improvised music and video, mixed and sequenced by the artists. The point of focus is to show how art and entertainment technologies play a crucial role in transcending political, cultural and psychological borders. It is part of a series of events at the University of Michigan this fall commemorating 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Guentner is best known for his work on Kompakt, which released his full-lengths In Moll (2001) and 1981 in 2005, and various single tracks on its annual Pop Ambient series. He has also released minimal house and techno music (Audio Island, Lovely Society) on the Ware label, also based in Cologne, and has a new LP, Doppelgaenger, released this fall on the Dutch Sending Orbs label. He has produced soundscapes for Ambient Works, a comprehensive workstation for creating cinematic atmospheres for feature films, documentaries, commercials and new media project applications. Guentner's only other area appearance was at Movement, Detroit's Electronic Music Festival, in 2006. He lives in Regensburg.

nospectacle is an electronic music, video and DJ hybrid project based in Detroit. The group is made up of Christopher McNamara, Jennifer A. Paull and Walter Wasacz, and performs original works by McNamara, a founding member of the Windsor-Detroit laptop group Thinkbox, re-shaping the source material into drones, dubs, disembodied voices, subsonic bass immersion and streaming images. McNamara's new release Vague Cities includes a remix by Guentner.

The group has performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), the Detroit Institute of Arts and at the Movement Festival. In 2008, nospectacle hosted Klimek, another German pop ambient artist, at the Cranbrook Art Museum. Listen to nospectacle live at Cranbrook 2008 here.

Check out Chris McNamara's track "oooohdear" on the Lend Me Your Ears blog.

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