TRANSIENT Impulsfestival 2021

Bad Münstereifel, Nettersheim and Kronenburg

The first TRANSIENT Impulse Festival 2021 with the theme “Beginning” at the locations Bad Münstereifel, Nettersheim and Kronenburg was strongly influenced by the Corona pandemic. Therefore, no audience was allowed at the first station of the festival in Bad Münstereifel.
The installation „Nuqta – the beginning” was set up in the Konviktkapelle Bad Münstereifel and there was a live broadcast of the performances on the internet for several hours over three days. In addition, a school project could be carried out at the local St. Michael Gymnasium.
In Nettersheim the originally planned room for a corona test center was needed, instead the conception was adapted to the historical monastery Nettersheim and its garden: here a limited number of visitors was allowed. In addition, we played in the public space of Nettersheim for one day: at several stations, musical contributions took place for several hours in cooperation with the local community and the theater school Nettersheim.
This concept was also continued in Kronenburg: in addition to the installation in the Haus für Lehrerfortbildung, which was performed on three consecutive evenings and was supplemented by two additional rooms with installations by Chiharu Shiota, there was a performance on the Kronenburg Burgberg with brass bands from the region and studio visits at local artists.
In this way, on the one hand, the installation took on a very different form at all three locations, and on the other hand, the spatial situation also always affected the sequence and perception of the musical works. Through several months of preparation and collaboration with the local communities, each of the three performance phases took on a unique and unrepeatable character. The last performance phase in Kronenburg was overshadowed by the flood disaster that had taken place a few weeks earlier and had caused great destruction in some of the partner villages.
The impulse-giving artwork 2021 “Nuqta- the beginning” was developed by the Japanese installation artist Chiharu Shiota, one of the most important and internationally renowned installation artists of the present, the musician Jeremias Schwarzer and the concert designer Folkert Uhde as a hybrid space of perception between art exhibition and concert. “Nuqta” in Arabic calligraphy refers to the starting point where the pen is placed on the paper and thus where every character begins and all creativity takes its start. The installation will feature works by Birke Bertelsmeier, Karlheinz Essl, Raquel Garcia Tomás, Annelies van Parys, Liza Lim, Michelle Anne Magalhaes, Salvatore Sciarrino, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Enno Poppe and others, as well as a specially developed electronic composition by Vincent Stange.
Musicians Valerie Fritz, Vincent Stange and Alexandra Vildosola were selected as Junior Fellows for the 2021 Impulse Festival. They were involved in the installation and created their own projects together with the local communities.

Click here for their blogs and projects..