SPLICE: Improvisation + Videografie at KM28, Berlin

Friday, October 13, 2023, at 8:30pm (doors: 8pm): SPLICE, an evening of improvisative performance and videography, takes place at KM28 (Karl-Marx-Str. 28, 12043 Berlin). The event will be the first performances of audio-visual compositions by Han-earl Park, and by Carina Khorkhordina:

Was passiert mit Interaktion, wenn Geste und Kontext aufgrund von Distanz nicht mehr vorhanden sind? Han-earl Park und Carina Khorkhordina stellen jeweils ihre Kompositionen für Solo-Improvisatoren und Videoprojektion vor. Aufbauend auf ihrer Arbeit, die sie vor (und während) der “all-our-lockdowns” entwickelt haben, ist SPLICE eine spielerische, lautstarke Erkundung schräger Fiktionen im ‘Hier und Jetzt’ und des ‘Dann und Dorthin.’

What happens to interaction when gesture and context are removed by distance? Han-earl Park and Carina Khorkhordina each perform their compositions for solo improviser and video projection. Building on their work developed before (and during) ‘all-our-lockdowns,’ SPLICE is a playful, noisy exploration of the oblique fictions of here and now, and then and there.

See the performance diary for up-to-date info. [KM28 program…] [Facebook event…]

Above video trailer by Han-earl Park. Original video and music by Carina Khorkhordina, and by Han-earl Park. © + ℗ 2023 Park/Khorkhordina.

about the artists

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe, Korea and the USA.

Park is the mastermind behind ensembles including Eris 136199 with Catherine Sikora and Nick Didkovsky; Juno 3 with Lara Jones and Pat Thomas; and Sirene 1009 with Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and rit.; and has a duo with Richard Barrett. He is the constructor of the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and instigator of Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Pauline Oliveros, Josh Sinton, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Andrew Drury and Franziska Schroeder.

His ensembles have appeared at festivals including Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Freedom of the City (London), Brilliant Corners (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). His recordings have been released by labels including NEWJAiM, SLAM Productions and DUNS Limited Edition. Park taught improvisation at University College Cork, and founded and curated Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.

Carina Khorkhordina is a trumpet player, photographer and an interdisciplinary artsit living in Berlin since 2014. Aside from developing her music on the trumpet and playing concerts she is working on a series of site-specific performances in the public space of Berlin in collaboration with different musicians, presented as short films and bringing together her interest in urban space, sonic possibilities of the trumpet, field recordings and video documentation.

She has been performing in the context of improvised and experimental music since 2017. The active groups include the duo with Eric Bauer, Slurge (with Eric Bauer, Burkhard Beins, Wolfgang Seidel), Klub Demboh, the duo with Axel Dörner and the trio with Eric Bauer and Lena Czerniawska, as well as a variety of ongoing collaborations.

Between 2016 and 2020 she was a student of various photography programs at FotoDepartament Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Performance diary (Berlin, Derby, London and Newcastle) 081223

upcoming performances
date venue time details
September 17, 2023 PAS
Kaiserin Augusta Allee 101
10553 Berlin
Germany
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone). Also performing: Soporose (Sara Neidorf: drums; and Marco Bianciardi: guitar). [Details…]
[PAS page…] [Facebook event…]
September 26, 2023 PAS
Kaiserin Augusta Allee 101
10553 Berlin
Germany
TBC QLH (Quentin Tolimieri: synthesizers; Luca Marini: drums; and Han-earl Park: guitar).
Details to follow…
September 27, 2023 Café Plume
Warthestraße 60
12051 Berlin
Germany
6:00pm (doors: 5:30pm) Camila Nebbia (saxophone), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics)
[Details…]
[Facebook event…]
October 4, 2023 PAS
Kaiserin Augusta Allee 101
10553 Berlin
Germany
8:30pm (doors: 8:00pm) QLH Move! with QLH (Quentin Tolimieri: synthesizers; Luca Marini: drums; and Han-earl Park: guitar) and dancers Jessica Gaynor, Anna Athanasiou, Jessica Akers and Lea Fulton.
[PAS page…] [Facebook event…]
October 13, 2023 KM28
Karl-Marx-Str. 28
12043 Berlin
Germany
8:30pm (doors: 8:00pm) SPLICE: an evening of improvisation and videography with new works composed and performed by Han-earl Park (guitar and videography), and by Carina Khorkhordina (trumpet and videography).
[Details…]
[KM program…] [Facebook event…]
Initiative Neue Musik Berlin
November 12, 2023 Venue TBC
Newcastle
England
TBC Han-earl Park (guitar), Lara Jones (saxophone and electronics) and Pat Thomas (electronics) presented by Jazz North East.
Details to follow…
Senate Department for Culture and Community
November 13, 2023 Cafe OTO
18–22 Ashwin Street
Dalston
London E8 3DL
England
8:00pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Lara Jones (saxophone and electronics) and Pat Thomas (electronics) perform as part of EFG London Jazz Festival.
£14, £12 advance, £7 members.
[OTO page/tickets…]
Senate Department for Culture and Community
November 15, 2023 Déda
19 Chapel Street
Derby DE1 3GU
England
6:30pm Han-earl Park (guitar), Heather Roche (clarinets) and Anton Hunter (guitar) presented by OUT FRONT!
Details to follow…
Senate Department for Culture and Community
December 4, 2023 Morphine Raum
Köpenicker Str. 147
10997 Berlin
Germany
8:30pm (doors: 8:00pm) Han-earl Park (guitar), Yorgos Dimitriadis (percussion and electronics) and Camila Nebbia (saxophone).
€10 at the door.
[Morphine page…]

Continue reading “Performance diary (Berlin, Derby, London and Newcastle) 081223”

SPLICE: ‘Trace,’ A Study

An experiment: testing out ideas for a piece, and a preview of a work-in-progress. The piece will premiere on October 13, 2023 at KM28 (Karl-Marx-Str. 28, 12043 Berlin).

See the performance diary for up-to-date info.

Coming soon: Juno 3

Juno 3 by Han-earl Park, Lara Jones and Pat Thomas will be released by Ramble Records in September 2023! As I said to Chris Sharkey, the mastering engineer, this album exists somewhere “between an audio play and a soundtrack album, as if Bernie Worrell had been tasked to create a score for a Douglas Adams produced radio adaptation of Space: 1999.” More soon!

Be first in-line to hear the new album! Please sign-up to my newsletter:

Signup to the newsletter [details…].

[About the newsletter…]

Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe

Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

SPLICE: ‘Bandwidth’ (work in progress)

Camera with rear display showing footage of Han-earl Park and guitar
SPLICE: Behind-the-scenes. © 2023 Han-earl Park.

‘Babel’ (#lockdownminiature Nº 22)

A ‘first-take’ ditty (it’s been a while since I posted a straightforward improvisation without any videographic or compositional concerns). I think maybe the first thirty seconds or so is a bit shaky, but I’m pretty happy with my playing here overall. I think it shows what I’ve been interested in, and working on, in regards to my approach to the guitar in the context of improvisation.

And a big, big thanks again to Musikfonds / Neustart Kultur for enabling me to continue, and build-on, these studies.

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

cover art (copyright 2021 NEWJAiM)

Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]

Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).

Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.

© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.

‘Sometimes All It Takes Is A Short Walk’ (#lockdownminiature Nº 19)

Big thanks to Musikfonds / Neustart Kultur for enabling me to continue, and build-on, these studies.

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

cover art (copyright 2021 NEWJAiM)

Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]

Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).

Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.

© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.

‘Precipitate’ (#lockdownminiature Nº 15)

What is distance?
What is perspective?
What is that gaze?
What is that absence? [Read the rest…]

If you’ve missed them, the previous fourteen miniatures in the series were posted on Facebook and on Twitter.

Out on NEWJAiM Recordings

cover art (copyright 2021 NEWJAiM)

Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]

Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).

Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.

© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.

QLH: ‘Sync’ (work in progress)

Balancing act between your body and physics

Jazz North East has just released The Sound of Science documentary by Euan Preston from The Palace of Science / Objectiv Pictures.

There’s this balancing act between your body and the mechanics of elastic collisions, and Newtonian physics, and all those things, and you’re creating music from balancing these things out…. [Watch to the rest…]

Sound of Science took place at Gosforth Civic Theatre in March 2022. If you missed my talk and performance as part of the festival, you can watch the archived livestream.

The word I use sometimes is ‘interface.’ So if you start thinking about creativity as this thing that happens between surfaces, that’s interesting in a way that the idea of the single auteur is much less interesting…. And as an artist you can do interesting things by kind of shifting you position within that boundary. [Watch to the rest…]

Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe

Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

Poetic, messy, terrifying and mesmerizing (article in Jazz Right Now)

As part of the ‘New Work’ series, Jazz Right Now has published my piece on work(ing) during these pandemic times; times of “uncertainty, anxiety, and of doubt.” In the article, I reflect on the perverse desire for artistic ‘productivity’; the breaches between public and private spaces; the artistic commemoration this time, this condition; and the need for creative work that frustrates:

The rogue strand of RNA danced its dance with humanity. It’s beautiful in its own way. Poetic—messy, terrifying, mesmerizing—in its own way.

R-nought.

New words and expressions entered the vernacular. Old words came to denote less—more specific things—but encapsulate and carry more meaning: of fear, uncertainty, yes, but also fascination. We’re being transformed, across porous borders, through language. Soon, those of us who lived through this, might share these as shorthands. ‘Variant’ means something. It has a texture and resonance and feel and vibe that can’t be captured by a Merriam-Webster.

I reflect on how pre-pandemic cultures (and culture-industrial complexes), with its obsession with authority and coherence and narrative, ill prepared us for the complexity and discord and messiness of the present. That maybe if we had held closer these prickly, uncomfortable, inconvenient, noisy heterophonies we, as societies, may have been more capable of facing the chaos, or dancing the dance of humanity v. RNA. [Read the rest…]

Thanks to Cisco Bradley for inviting me to contribute to this series, and thanks so much to Cristina Marx for the photography.

Watch the rest of the #lockdownminiature series on Twitter and Facebook.

Out now on NEWJAiM Recordings

cover art (copyright 2021 NEWJAiM)

Of Life, Recombinant (NEWJAiM9) [details…]

Personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar) with Anne Wellmer (voice on track 4).

Track listing: Game: Mutation (5:38); Naught Opportune (≥ 10:42); Are Variant (≥ 8:06); Of Life, Recombinant (≥ 29:22). Total duration ≥ 53:48.

© 2021 NEWJAiM Recordings.
℗ 2021 Han-earl Park.

Bodies, agency, ‘the material,’ automata, cyborgs and improvisation

“Once I have those parameters, I can reconfigure the body and the instrument so it kind of runs itself….

“The word I use sometimes is ‘interface.’ So if you start thinking about creativity as this thing that happens between surfaces, that’s interesting in a way that the idea of the single auteur is much less interesting…. And as an artist you can do interesting things by kind of shifting you position within that boundary.” [Listen to the rest…]

Tonight

Tuesday, March 22, 2022, at 8:00pm: Han-earl Park performs at Hyde Park Book Club (27–29 Headingley Lane, Leeds LS6 1BL).

Also coming up

Han-earl Park is also performing with rit. and Una Lee, in Dublin (24), Letterkenny (25), Derry (26) and Belfast (27). See the performance diary for details.

Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe

Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.