KASSIA & the Convent(ion) A Performative Archive
KAINKOLLEKTIV | SPUTNIC | MIREVI (HOCHSCHULE DÜSSELDORF) U. A.
The composer, poet & Byzantine abbess Kassia is considered the first European composer whose works have survived and still play an important role in European (music) history. Kassia was born in Constantinople in 810. Kassia is not only an enigmatic personality as a musician. She is also a writer of astonishing radicalism, composing not only sacred poetry but also secular texts, of which more than 250 have survived in the form of epigrams. Last but not least, she appears as a political figure who rhetorically opposes the emperor Theophilos in his search for a bride.
Kassia is a kind of early feminist and cosmopolitan role model. Her work was taken by kainkollektiv and various artists, scholars and institutions from Germany, Poland and Turkey as the starting point for a multi-dimensional and multidimensional project consisting of the KASSIA opera performance and the (digital) KASSIA conference. Finally, the KASSIA online exhibition/archive aims to make these project parts visible in a bundled form and link them interactively. The online exhibition/archive KASSIA will make the Kassia cosmos accessible, with all media developed in the previous parts of the project – music, texts, performance, lectures, images, portraits etc. – becoming part of this digital space.
More info about the KASSIA-Archiv
In cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Media Art Fund and by the City of Bochum.
More info about the cooperation
In our podcast Olga Felker talks to Mirjam Schmuck about the Kassia project
The international artist team kainkollektiv has been working in various collaborations on theatrical scores between theater, installation and performance since 2009. These collaborations, from Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia to Poland, Croatia and Cameroon, are dedicated to a cooperative theater of time. Working in international (co-)productions – the music-theatrical, docu-fictional GLOBE OPERAS, a performance format invented by kainkollektiv and based on extensive research – is a central component of the working method.
More info about kainkollektiv
The collective sputnic develops new scenographic productions and installations using specially designed media and stage spaces. They experiment with crossover projects that combine analog, digital and media resources to create narratives and visual worlds on stage. In 2015, the collective created a new genre in theater and film with the production “The Possibility of an Island”: Live Animation Cinema. The production “IOTA.KI” was awarded Best Production 2019 at the HART AM WIND Festival in Kiel and included in the official program of the Ruhrfestspiele 2020.
More info about sputnic
MIREVI (Mixed Reality and Visualization) at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences in the Department of Media is a team of digital media experts, computer scientists, designers and artists – all with a common interest in developing and implementing the best possible user experience for a wide variety of contexts. We work hard to create innovative interfaces between people and technology that are novel, useful and sustainable.
More info about MIREVI
The publication VORSTELLUNG DER GEFÖRDERTEN PROJEKTE 2021-2023
on the Media Art Fund & Media Art Fellows can be downloaded here.
Illustrations: © Malte Jehmlich & Verena Herbst