May 8–11, 2014
Stupid Music
Songs for Dreaming, Sedation and Forgetting
Theme of Stupid Music is escapism: the flight from everyday life, from reality, from bad news, and the role music can play in this – music that dulls our senses, deafens and numbs us, and makes us "stupid".
Drinking songs, music meant to relax us, functional sound, and sound as a decorative element are all looked at. And yet clichés are interrogated as well, taking a closer look at purportedly “stupid,” escapist genres like the Schlager, the polka, or the arabesque, and questioning supposedly “quality” genres like jazz and classical music.
If the first parts of the festival trilogy: Unhuman Music (Compositions by Machines, by Animals, and by Accident) and Evil Music (Odes to Violence, Death, and Demons) explored the importance and intention of the human, Stupid Music will examine the intelligence of the main protagonist of the Anthropocene, his ability to learn and develop.
Curated by Detlef Diederichsen and Holger Schulze, Head of Sound-Studies-Lab Berlin
In the framework of:
