MÆKUR is the collaborative project of Maiа Urstad, Eva Rowson and Anton Kats. The collective synthesizes artistic, sonic, radiophonic and curatorial practices to research and respond to communication technologies, amateur radio networks, archival practices and ways of listening. As new technological forms open up and others become obsolete, MÆKUR are interested in how methods of self-organising, listening and transmitting as well as the sounds of the technology itself — its errors, interruptions and signals — also evolve. At the core of the MÆKUR collaboration is an ongoing archive, to gather and emphasise multiple soundings of technical development and the different communities that form around it.

“CONDITIONS : 1218-0719” is MÆKUR’s first release. It includes live performances and excerpts from the MÆKUR archive, including recordings from Blind Veterans UK Amateur Radio Society, Bergen Kringkaster (Bergen Broadcasting Association) and the Deutsche Welle radio archive. The recordings were gathered and improvised during residencies at Bergen Kunsthall, Norway (2018) and Lighthouse, Brighton, UK (2019), as part of ‘Who’s doing the washing up?’, an 18-month artist commissioning programme on the politics of institutional re-imagining.

Released at Sonic Acts Academy, February 2020 on limited edition vinyl and available as a digital download at maekur.bandcamp.com.

“CONDITIONS : 1218-0719” is a collaborative release co-produced by Bergen Kunsthall (Norway), Lighthouse (United Kingdom), Sonic Acts and Paradiso (Netherlands). Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Bios

Anton Kats is an artist, musician and dancer whose work often unfolds in public and liminal spaces as sculptures, interventions, concerts, learning sites and public programmes involving radio, sound, video and research. His practice derives from informal everyday relationships in the vibrant neighbourhood of Kherson, Ukraine in which he grew up, complemented by the process of self-legalisation in Europe. Under the name ILYICH he merges fine art and electronic music. Kats has lectured at various universities and received a practice-based PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London. At Sonic Acts in 2016, his talk and sound performance Radio Sound System conveyed his neighbourhood-oriented broadcasting practice. He has also shown at Serpentine Galleries, Tate Modern, documenta 14, 10th Berlin Biennale and Haus der Kulturen der Welt among others.

Website: www.antonkats.net

Eva Rowson is an artist and curator from the United Kingdom. Her practice is organised around hosting, collaborating and building organisations, focussing on how the different types of work involved are valued and with what consequences. This research has been at the core of collaborative projects including living-room project space 38b, co-run with Luke Drozd and ¿Cómo imaginar una musea?, a Catalan-Spanish-English project on conjuring a cultural institution from a feminist perspective. From 2018 to 2019 Rowson was curator at Bergen Kunsthall and also curator-in-residence at Lighthouse in Brighton, where she led a programme on the politics of institutional re-imagining asking, ‘Who’s doing the washing up?’ She co-runs Bergen’s golden jar, an experimental music platform to support female and non-binary practitioners working on and off stage, and leads the MFA course on collaborative practices at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Bergen.

Maia Urstad is an artist based in Bergen working at the intersection of audio and visual art. She was a member of ska/new-wave group Program 81, touring from 1979 – 84. Technological progress and communications technology are pervasive in her work, in which radio is a key audio, visual and conceptual element with which to comment on the temporary nature of technology and the traces and stories left behind in our daily lives. Appointed city sound artist of Bonn in 2017 and awarded the Rune Brynestad memorial grant in 2019, her most recent solo and collaborative projects took place in the context of 14th Bienal de Artes Mediales in Santiago, Bergen Kunsthall and Radio Revolten. Urstad co-founded Lydgalleriet in Bergen and is part of the international sound art collective freq_out curated by CM von Hausswolff with which she participated in Sonic Acts 2013.

Website: www.maia.no