The World as instrument: A Theoretical Workshop Taught by Francisco Lopez ::February 16-18 2010 (3Days) :: 10:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 17:00 :: NK Elsenstr. 52 2HH 2 Etage, 12059 Berlin :: Participation is limited to 15 participants :: Preregistration is required and can be done by sending an email to enka_nk@gmx.de :: Fee: 150 Euros

Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene. Over the past 30 years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion.

He has realized hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound installations in 60 countries of the five continents. His extensive catalog of sound pieces (with live and studio collaborations with over 100 international artists) has been released by more than 200 record labels worldwide, and he has been awarded three times with honorary mentions at the competition of Ars Electronica Festival. [Pedro Higueras, Sonom Studios]

This theoretical workshop is focused on the historical, sociological and philosophical (rather than technical) aspects of different practices that have the “real world” as a source, or an inspiration, for sonic creation. From ancestral manifestations of music derived from nature to the present massive sonic exploration of our world, analyzing the historical attempts at recording sonic reality and creatively transform it, from musical notation to digital technology. With a multitude of sonic examples, from traditional to electronic music, the workshop aims at stirring up discussion and at challenging many stereotypical and misleading conceptions about recorded sound in many diverse areas and objects of study, from bioacoustics to experimental music, from phonographs to hard disk recorders, from birds to cosmic radio emissions.