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For the third year running, the programme Archipelago encourages an understanding of the complexity of the contemporary world through listening, exploring what is understood by experimental music and the relation it bears to popular culture by way of different narratives and geographies. 

The present edition explores the concept of tradition: a term predominantly associated with conservatism and regression in the face of change, but with a meaning that implies the transfer of knowledge from one person to another and from one generation to the next.

As part of the performing arts series staged in collaboration with the Community of Madrid’s Teatros del Canal, the Museo Reina Sofía presents, over two sessions, Corbeaux (Crows), by choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen.

Corbeaux is a kind of “living sculpture” with no contrivance, comprising raw elements, gestures, silences and, at times, the cries of a group of women dressed in black, their bodies creating figures and forms in the space they share with spectators. As the piece evolves, pre-conceived notions of time and space vanish, making way for a hard-to-classify lived experience intended to be both intimate and universal.

In its second edition, Archipelago asserts its approach to listening as a form of both knowledge and aesthetic pleasure. Attendants are encouraged to approach the complexities of the cotemporary world not only through the ear, but also through the body, by absorbing sound with all their organs and bones.

Participants: Janneke van der Putten, Agnès Pe, Hashigakari, Tutu, Clara de Asís, Cedrick Fermont, Toukadime, Sofyann Ben, Youssef (Ammar 808), Áine O’Dwyer, Tarawangsawelas + Rabih Beaini, Nadah El Shazly, Errorsmith and Dj Lag.

This video assembles a series of interviews, carried out in conjunction with the presentation of León Ferrari's literary collage The Words of Others, which explore the Argentinean artist's approaches to his work and the challenges and research entailed in staging this theatre piece in the Museo Reina Sofía.

Participants:
Ruth Estévez. Independent researcher. In charge of direction and mise en scène.
Ana Longoni. Director of Public Activities, Museo Reina Sofía.
Javier del Olmo. Representative of the León Ferrari Foundation.
José Antonio Sánchez. Researcher. In charge of dramaturgy and mise en scène.
Isabel de Naverán. Dance advisor, Museo Reina Sofía.

Archipelago is a new series of concerts that views listening at once as a form of knowledge and aesthetic enjoyment. In this, the first edition, Archipelago is enveloped in drone and minimalist music, exploring its influences and unexpected offshoots.

In this session, Emmanuel Holterbach performs the full version of Trilogy on Death, by the French composer Éliane Radigue. Agnès Pe, a self-taught and multidisciplinary musicologist and researcher, performs her own interpretation of the concept of Archipelago, approaching a musical theme via different styles and places.

Archipelago is a new series of concerts that views listening at once as a form of knowledge and aesthetic enjoyment. In this, the first edition, Archipelago is enveloped in drone and minimalist music, exploring its influences and unexpected offshoots.

The programme welcomes the Japanese musician and artist Yoshi Wada, linked to Fluxus, and his son Tashi Wada, who works with experimental music, art and interdisciplinary performance. They perform in this session a specific piece with the collaboration of the percussionist Ingar Zach and the Banda de Gaitas Lume of Biqueira.
To complete the session, Damián Schwartz, producer, DJ and artist based in Madrid explores the edgier side of dance music, relating figures such as Jamal Moss and his more experimental strands to composers such as Terry Riley and Robert Ashley.

Archipelago is a new series of concerts that views listening at once as a form of knowledge and aesthetic enjoyment. In this, the first edition, Archipelago is enveloped in drone and minimalist music, exploring its influences and unexpected offshoots.

This session presents Severine Beata, name chosen by Marta Peláez for a new sound project, who performs some of these new tracks alongside Javi Álvarez (Fluzo, Dúo Cobra, Néboa, Dj de la muerte, La Follable, etc.), producer of the record presented on this occasion; and the band iNSANLAR (literally meaning “humanity” in Turkish but with more profound and esoteric connotations), whose album Kime Ne, gained international admiration, catching the ear of the listener with its idiosyncratic blend of traditional Anatolian-Mesopotamian instrumentation, electronic music and spiritual and philosophical lyrics.

Throughout her career as a performer and composer, Joan La Barbara, a hugely influential figure in the sphere of contemporary experimental music, has explored the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument, developing a true and signature vocabulary of experimental techniques. She uses these techniques to explore the potential range of timbres in a single pitch, circular breathing inspired by French horn playing, and multiphonics, in addition to recovering classics such as choral singing.

Resonance is a series of sound interventions for a specific site, activating the acoustic and historical space in the Museo Reina Sofía’s Sabatini Building. The programme refrains from using the auditorium and electronic amplification, which means guest artists, musicians and composers will present a series of pieces that set in motion alternative contexts for sound and contemporary music.

This series lays out a set of interventions that work with unwanted echoes and resonances, developing the properties sound possesses, depending on where it is produced – a quality that the careful design of auditoriums, speakers and earphones have tried to make us forget.

Poetry lecture by Ben Okri on the opening of Elly Strik. Ghosts, Brides and other Companions, on January 22, 2014.