Text by CLOT Magazine
Berlin Atonal presents Metabolic Rift: an (un)guided exhibition tour through the entire Kraftwerk building from September 25 to October 10, 2021. The unique exhibition operates as a sequenced series of site-specific interventions from leading international sound and visual artists, channelling an audience’s experience through organised time. Small groups enter previously unused spaces of the former powerplant to discover a choreographed succession of artistic assemblages.
These works span a wide range from futuristic city-scapes designed by Congolese sculptor Rigobert Nimi to a collection of drawings from visionary artist Liliane Lijn, a new kinetic sculpture by Cyprien Gaillard working with Jamal Moss (Hieroglyphic Being) to an in-situ work from Sung Tieu together with Amnesia Scanner’s Ville Haimala, sculptural pieces from Giulia Cenci, sound installations from Pan Daijing, new works from Tino Sehgal, Nina Canell and many more.
The exhibition itself functions as a metabolic system. The Kraftwerk complex provides the physical structure for this system to operate according to two distinct ‘rhythms’. A linear layout of situated artworks and performances plot a path through the Tresor club (lying unused for over a year) and into unseen areas of the deep Kraftwerk infrastructure. Borrowing the logic of a ‘ghost train’, works perform themselves in sequence, appearing and disappearing in choreographed succession.
Eventually, the audience is exhaled into the cavernous main hall where the principle is an accumulation, and the sequence is set as if according to a musical score. The presence of a rhythm played out with light, darkness and sounds fuels free activity within the ever-changing organisation of the topological space. The boundaries between things shift and reassemble. Seeing and hearing happen in a chain reaction, a circulation of kinetic energy. The exhibition tour replicates procedures in which energy is exchanged, boosted and eventually transformed; metabolic pathways and electric circuits maintain themselves until they fail.
The full experience unfolds over approximately 2 hours. Visitors can book a day and time to access the (un)guided tour, which is available until sold out. After two years of sad lights-out, Atonal will host performances in the Kraftwerk complex again. Highlights include an opening concert with Canadian sound-master Tim Hecker.
Also included in the line-up is a site-specific A/V performance from Space Afrika, a large-scale realization of Caterina Barbieri‘s light-years label platform project, a world premiere of the collaboration between Flora Yin-Wong + Laila Sakini, a performance by the mesmerising Eli Keszler, a co-presentation of caner teker‘s KIRKPINAR with the Julia Stoschek Collection as part of A FIRE IN YOUR BELLY, and a new project combining Shackleton + Wacław Zimpel in association with Unsound.
More info, line-up and tickets here.
