sound crystal

2020
SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin

Sound crystal is an interactive sonic sculpture and a sound system.

The work is developed to encourage spontaneous emergence of sonic and performative interventions and music concerts. Exploring the basic geometrical forms and auditory hallucinations like Doppler Effect, the project considers possibilities of listening to momentarily disrupt identitarian, fascistic, and hyper-individualised constructions of the self that separate us.

In the framework of the exhibition and the Untraining the Ear Listening Sessions at SAVVY Contemporary, Sound Crystal was activated by ILYICH, musician and storyteller occasionally re-appearing at the core of music performances, sonic rituals, and interventions. Mysteriously entangled with this world, yet clearly not from here, ILYICH’s stories are identity slippages and anecdotes of struggle told from the multiple first-person narratives. Oscillating between recognisable electronic music and abstract sonic improvisations ILYICH can be often found at the core of an intimate listening session, a sound ritual, gallery or museum gathering, or on a larger club and festival stages around the world. ILYICH has contributed a performance lecture “Sound and Thoughts”, sharing anecdotes of struggle told from the multiple first-person narratives, and an improvised electronic music set “Grounded Outer Space People”

Sound Crystal is a contribution to the RAUPENIMMERSATTISM exhibition at SAVVY Contemporary. The exhibition confronts the endless consumption of our societies and the affluence many hold at the expense of others’ poverty. A collective exhibition is composed as a result of ten months of research, grapplings, and reasonings together. The show unfolds as a choral questioning to challenge structural inequalities and stand alongside positions of vulnerability.

Sound Crystal contributors:
Anastasia Pilepchuk – ILYICH’s space helmet 
Anna Simakova – ILYICH’s space suit
Bona Bell – Videographie
Byron Kalomamas – co-conception of the installation and structural design
Daria Zorkina – foto-documentation
Igor Kritskiy – foto-retouching
Jared Meier-Klodt – sound engineer
Maria Korovkina – project management
Raisa Galofre – foto-documentation
Rey Domurat  – installation set up and live sound 
Sonja Stadelmeier – foto-documentation

The project is produced by: