X100 is a new one-off festival concept organized by Berlin Atonal which will take place at Kraftwerk Berlin on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of November 2022.

The festival celebrates and contextualizes the legacy of Iannis Xenakis (1922 – 1997). Xenakis’ pioneering work initialized techniques and directions that continue to inspire a variety of disciplines from architecture and drawing to music theory and light design. But a hundred years after he was born, the continuing presence of this great composer is felt most strongly in the thriving and overlapping tradition(s) of experimental electronic music – the world in which Berlin Atonal operates.

The idea is to combine presentations of Xenakis’ legendary works alongside new commissions and special live performances from some of the most innovative artists working in experimental and performative electronic music today. Among the artists that will present new work during the festival are: multi-disciplinary artist Pan Daijing, Moritz von Oswald, Berlin-based experimentalists LABOUR, Puce Mary with Bill Kouligas, Dreamcrusher for their first Berlin performance, experimental rapper JJJJJerome, Lee Gamble, Florian Hecker and Russell Haswell playing with the Xenakis devised UPIC System and much much more.

The sonic world of Xenakis, this once musical outsider, used formidable musical techniques such as arborescences, stochastic synthesis, and proto-granular synthesis in service of high-impact musical events, sensorial immersion, spectacle, and noise. Contextualized here amongst diverse practices and trends within contemporary electronic music, the music of this prolific utopianist continues to not only challenge modes of temporal existence, but of how music can be imagined and shared.

X100 is organized by OUTER (the team behind Berlin Atonal) and Studio LABOUR, with the support of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

https://berlin-atonal.com/