SCHALLFEST
by kunstgruppe GOTTLIEB Berlin KGGB
in Dortmund, Germany

40-day Klanginszenierungen in public space 18.07.-26.08.2018
– Airport, all underground stations, harbour, fire brigade, museum, town house, zoo and international zoos, motorcade, cargo ship, plane and more –
and World’s Largest Sound-Art-Installation on 09.09.18
and extensive 40-minutes sound art composition, place and date TBA

SCHALLFEST is an event of the city of Dortmund

SCHALLFEST – idea, concept, work, compositions: kunstgruppe GOTTLIEB

With SCHALLFEST, a work of art by kunstgruppe GOTTLIEB, a German city becomes the main actor of an extraordinary and large-scale work of art in a so far unique way.

This gesamtkunstwerk by the internationally active exceptional artists, which examines the essence of city, manifests itself dynamically like a big city: as a 40-day festival of elaborate sound productions and art actions in public space (July 18th – August 26th), as the World’s Largest Sound-Art-Installation (Sept. 9th) including a large moving sound sculpture in Dortmund’s city centre and the world premiere of an extraordinary sound art composition of sounds from the city of Dortmund, which were recorded by KGGB over a period of one year in intensive cooperations at selected locations in the city.

With SCHALLFEST, large areas and special places of urban space become art and stage spaces and important institutions of the city are brought together in an unprecedented way to form a common art event space.

SCHALLFEST’s partners and venues are Dortmund Airport, Dortmund Port, Dortmund Fire Brigade, the public transport company DSW21 in Dortmund with 26 underground stations, the Museum of Art and Cultural History, Dortmund Zoo, international zoos, the Old and New Town House at Friedensplatz, the Olympic Base Westphalia with the German Eight, Gneisenau Colliery, a motorcade in the city centre and the shipping company MS Bayerischer Wald.
During the 40-day festival, the city of Dortmund will be provided with daily rotating sound for one to two hours with composition loops over the public loudspeaker systems of the airport, the zoo, the city’s 26 underground stations, the Berswordt-Halle, the connecting building of the Old and New Town Houses, and the fire-fighting boat of the port.
In the Museum of Art and Cultural History, the sounds are played day and night via an audio sculpture, like an Olympic fire.

In addition, the sounds are transported by air and sea – by heavy-duty cargo ship and passenger aircraft – into the world. The aim of the flight is Plovdiv in Bulgaria, the European Capital of Culture 2019, where the compositions will be officially presented by KGGB and an official representative of the city of Dortmund, so that the work will also be an official contribution to the European Capital of Culture in 2019.

The sounds will also travel through the time zones which will be realized through a very special cooperation with international zoos: Zoológico de Cali Colombia, Belo Horizonte Brazil, Newquay England, Zoo Schmiding Austria, Jardin Zoologique de Rabat Morocco

The different compositions that will be heard in public space are theatrical-dramatic and exclusively tailored to the respective locations. Again and again, new spaces such as stage sets and real entries and exits of protagonists and events are staged by sound.

The festival will open on 18 July at 1.30 pm with the artists and a Klanginszenierung from the balcony of the Old Town House on Friedensplatz followed by an opening ceremony and a press reception in the wedding room, as a symbol of the union of sounds.

After the 40-day festival, kunstgruppe GOTTLIEB and all its partners will realize the World’s Largest Sound-Art-Installation on Sunday 9th September, in which the sounds will sound simultaneously at all venues, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., on several thousand square meters, thus setting a sensational world record.

This art event will be introduced with a large motorcade, in cooperation with the Turkish community of the Sultan Ahmet Mosque Dortmund Dorstfeld, as a moving sound sculpture in Dortmund’s city centre. A composition created exclusively for this spectacular installation is played back via the car’s own music system. The wedding ritual Korso closes the circle to the opening ceremony of the work of art in the wedding room of the old town house.

The venues for the Klanginszenierungen were selected in such a way that, distributed in all directions of the city, they surround the city by sound as if it were a bell, like an imaginary sculpture. The connecting element, like the blood vessels of a body, are the subway lines inside the city. The sound is spread all over the body – all over the city.

On this day, all compositions can also be heard in the Museum of Art and Cultural History via the public loudspeaker system throughout the building.

kunstgruppe GOTTLIEB will be present for the entire 40 days of the SCHALLFEST productions in the city of Dortmund and will be accessible at selected venues for the population and visitors to the city.

The public premiere of an extensive 40-minute city sound art composition will take place in autumn 2018.

The title of the work SCHALLFEST is ambiguous: On the one hand it alludes to the means of expression, the sound, and the festival character of the work resulting from the overflowing self-staging; on the other hand, due to its meaning for an inseparable material connection, it refers to the uniform nature of a city itself.