Visualiser of Michal Turtle Reinterpreted

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You are visiting the hybrid Visualiser of Michal Turtle Reinterpreted presented by PLANISPHERE in collaboration with Jonathan Castro Alejos, Chris Harnan, and Sander Sturing. It is the result of a creative research on how the perception of music has altered through the progression of digitalisation.

VISUALISER

The Visualiser is a virtual environment that is in constant evolution, growing and mutating as a living spirit. It invites the audience to halt, reflect moving away from certainty to orient itself towards the unknown to reach new pathways of thought far from comfort theories and into a more cosmological state of being.

This experience is guided by thirteen videos worked by Jonathan Castro, Sander Sturing and Chris Harnan exploring and re-interpreting the rhythm, materiality, effects and affects of the tracks as a living ecosystem giving residency to matters, memories, speculation and associations for a possible re-orientation of the present.

CONTEXT

In an age of absolute computation, in which more and more spheres of life seem to be permeated by technology, our idea of what it means to be human has been and is fundamentally changing.

One of PLANISPHERE’s main research fields is the dematrialisation process of music as an art form. The origin of this project was marked by the resurfacing of ambient music as the leading genre within the avant-garde electronic music scene. A genre that has no clear definition, no place to exist, but the stereotypical elevator, the place between places.

A particular figure of this scene is Basel-based, Michal Turtle, whose cult classics from the mid 1980ies resurfaced through the power of the internet in the early years of the past decade. In cooperation with twelve music artists from all over the globe, Michal Turtle’s music was recontextualised in a thirteen-track reinterpretation album on PLANISPHERE EDITORIAL.

In the search for a home for this distinctive sound, PLANISPHERE reached out to Art Director, Jonathan Castro Alejos, to collaborate on a speculative excursion of how music could be experienced in the digital age. Together with visual artist Chris Harnan, the visual language of the project was formed.

PHYSICAL / 47°34'14.0"N 7°34'23.6"E

Hosted by VITRINE, Basel, a physical adaption of the Visualiser can be viewed as a two-week long intervention within the gallery space from the 8th to the 22nd of February 2021, 5 - 11pm, Daily.

The intervention based around the Visualiser further narrows the liminal space between the virtual and the physical. By creating interaction points with the gallery space, the Visualiser functions as a portal between both worlds. It invites the public to connect through the complex mechanics of digital progression, while offering itself as a token of hope for art and culture for what is yet to come.

VITRINE is a contemporary art gallery founded in London in 2010, with this second space in Basel opened in 2016. VITRINE, Basel is a transparent space – custom designed by Swiss architects PanteraPantera - and offers a 360 degree ‘in-the-round’ viewing experience. This transparent architecture allows all exhibitions to be viewable 24/7 from the surrounding public squares, and offers the opportunity for visitors to view installations safely during the Covid-19 restrictions, following government guidelines.

You can purchase the record “Michal Turtle Interpreted" or acquire up to three of Chris Harnan’s prints via PLANISPHERE EDITORIAL on Bandcamp or Bigcartel.