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She is one of the pioneers of sound art. At 73, the German Christina Kubisch is still as unclassifiable as ever. Since 2004, she has been organizing "electronic walks" in cities around the world.
Christina Kubisch likes to call herself a "sound hunter". As a musician and researcher, she has been using objects to find new forms of art and new music for over fifty years. As an accordionist, violinist and flautist, she first studied painting at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts, before turning to music. In 1974, she joined the Hamburg Academy of Music. At the same time, she played in pop and rock bands: aesthetic choices that caused a scandal at the academy, from which she was expelled...
Christina Kubisch then distanced herself from so-called "classical" music and asserted herself in the wake of John Cage, an experimentalist and provocative artist. In her performances, she likes to caricature classical and contemporary music recitals by inventing other ways of playing, for example, the flute!
At the end of the 1970s, she was part of the first generation of sound artists: musicians, graphic artists and visual artists who worked with sound and made noise their creative material. Hearing is king... And Christina Kubisch is a bit of a magician: sound sculptures, installations, work with ultraviolet light, electroacoustic compositions, radio works... The field of possibilities is vast, creativity is limitless, and her performances are very clear: for Christina Kubisch, the arts are made to coexist. Even worse, to mingle! The musician uses all possible sounds... even those that cannot be heard and systematically involves the audience. Sound is an experience to be lived. The proof is in the electronic walks, the famous "Electrical Walks", that she has been organizing for more than 15 years in cities all over the world.
In 2019, the German artist is making a stop in the French capital and the public can discover Electrical Walks Paris, a walk in the public space - in this case, the streets of central Paris -, headphones on and a map of the neighborhood in hand, which allows you to hear the sound waves that are, usually, imperceptible to the naked ear: little music from the tramway, the surveillance cameras in the shops, the cash registers in the mini-market, the automatic teller machines in the banks, the public lighting or even the wifi... Fun to wish for, but not only: turning your ear towards the inaudible, here is an experience that is out of the ordinary. It's an opportunity to take a different look at the urban environment. This interactive sound walk was part of the Inaudible Matters cycle. Sur les seuils de l'inaudible proposed by the Gaîté Lyrique. Although the "Electrick Walks" experience has been halted due to the pandemic, it will continue to travel. To discover the future stops, go to the artist's website
An interview with Christina Kubisch on Radio Station Essence in Bordeaux:
Suzanne Gervais
