Performance

Note: Due to a short-term change, Selma Lindgren’s performance unfortunately cannot take place. Ben Glas’s performance will go on as planned.

Ben Glas’s performance Cognitive Dissonance is a participatory composition in which all volunteer participants are given a word that they are to repeat in any way they choose, entirely at their own discretion. Each person receives a different word, thereby unfolding a nonlinear narrative or semantic landscape that we create and dissolve together as a group. The aim of the piece is to explore a sonic space for semantic saturation—a psychological phenomenon in which a constantly repeated word temporarily loses its meaning. A surreal effect emerges, and listeners are encouraged to walk through the space and establish linguistic connections with other speakers, thereby discovering seemingly magical possibilities.

Ben Glas (he/him) is an experience-oriented composer based in Berlin. Through ephemeral compositions, Glas explores preconceived notions of the difference between passive and active listening in his work. In search of open musical forms and pragmatic listening perspectives, Glas’s compositions focus on the realms of subjective perception and cognition, employing acoustics, psychoacoustics, and space as tools of sound composition. His works have been exhibited and performed worldwide, including at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), the Radiophrenia Festival in Glasgow, the Soundwave Biennial (SF), and the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA). He holds a B.F.A. from PNCA and an M.A. from UdK. He contributed to sound recording and editing for Folks Press as part of the Dada variety show The Late Now. His performance piece UNTITLED (°45.536693 °-122.665898 13.08.2017 22:40)—a multichannel composition featuring seven performers—was presented at PICA’s Time-Based Arts Festival in Portland. Glas also had a solo exhibition titled A Social Harmony at Ohrenhoch! Der Geräuschladen in Berlin, and his works were featured in the 2018 group exhibition Post Human: The 5th International Exhibition on New Media at CICA.