If the past couple of years has taught us anything, it’s that time is entirely relative. Friends and family separated by circumstance are reconnecting in a world drastically changed since 2020, the trauma of global crisis continues to unfold, along with the realization that existing within a linear temporal logic is far more complex than what we once cared to admit. Creamcake’s “Stains of Time” durational installation, listening session and performance event examines how we “spend” our most precious resource—the limited years, days and hours we have in this life. The Berlin collective and event organizer has invited four artists to design an ambient party and discursive labyrinth at Heizhaus, during Musik Installationen Nürnberg, from July 7 to 10.
An inquiry into the notion of non-normative time, this compound encounter of myriad social, political and cultural; economic, technological and narrative positions orbits the “DJ Iceland” nexus of instrumentation and performance—an unbounded stage floor area surrounded by lounging pillows created by multidisciplinary designer Ayscha Omar and design studio ErtlundZull. The dynamic spatial concept investigates the system of relationships between the performers, their audience and the scenography, keeping these interconnections in constant flux and motion, like the mechanism of a moving clock. A timepiece’s rollers, barrels and wheels; ratchets, pinions and pallets move at their own rate, much like the individual works of each artist contributing to the wider composite of the “Stains of Time” four-day event.
Building on this push-pull of individuality and unity, Polish performance artist and producer Ewa Poniatowska presents “Glass Hand in Hand” with performer Gloria Regotz. The tension between comfort and discomfort, brutality and tenderness, fragility and strength, power and compliance emerge in constant conversation during their choreographed, interactive performance driven by music and voices. Tucson-born artist bod [包家巷], creates an unsettling “Stains of Time” score to run throughout the event, along with a live-set using loud and disturbing biomechanical Zerg+Protoss-type audio exploring the constructed sounds of the galaxy, healing, change, and growth. Lauryn Youden creates a performance, curated auditory experiences and poetry readings by writer Alice Notely, pioneering electronic composer Eliane Radigue, and ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna. It considers the history of mourning, chronic Illness as near-death experience, and forgotten practices of care. Meanwhile, countertenor Steven Katona’s “Strings” musically questions time and reality by linking the three mythological Moirai—who spin, measure, and cut the thread of life—with scientific string theory, which assumes that the smallest particles of the universe are made up of vibrating and looping one-dimensional strings, each with its own characteristic frequency. As a compound encounter of each unique position of its contributors, “Stains of Time” is a meditation on the elasticity and ephemerality of time and a fractured notion of continuity in periods of crisis.
Thursday, focus on time
6.00pm Stains of Time
6.30pm Steve Katona “Strings”
7.00pm Poetry Reading by Lauryn Youden
8.00 Soundscapes by bod [包家巷]
Friday, focus on movement
8.00pm Stains of Time
8.15pm Steve Katona “Strings”
8.30pm Ewa Poniatowska & Gloria Regotz “Glass Hand in Hand”
Saturday, focus on party
10.00pm Stains of Time
10.15pm Steve Katona “Strings”
11.00pm Noise by bod [包家巷]
12am DJ sets by Ewa Awe & bod [包家巷]
Sunday, focus on listening
3.00pm Stains of Time
3.30pm Steve Katona “Strings”
4.00pm Listening session and Poetry Reading by Lauryn Youden
6.00pm Stains of Time
