Installations & interventions

Scott King: 21 Memorial Benches: Wheel and 16 Diagrammatic Flags: Performance

Scott King dedicates two works to those whose attitude, work, and life have inspired No! Music. His park bench series erects a monument to dead musical dissidents associated with Berlin: A number of them became famous for their “No!” – others have been forgotten or never emerged from obscurity. However, in the spirit of an egalitarian act, the park bench, much-loved as a personally inscribed memorial, places them all side by side. King adopts a similar approach with his “dot gig” flags, graphic representations of famous concerts that translate audience and stars into uniform points. King’s artistic work, realized in collaboration with, amongst others, the Pet Shop Boys or Malcolm McLaren, is as familiar with Pop culture’s comprehensive system of signs as it is driven by the same satirical-debunking agenda.

Moritz Frei: Antitussivum

Usually, it is loudest during intermission. Nowhere is there so much coughing and throat-clearing than in a classical concert hall when the audience attempts to remain as quiet as possible. Moritz Frei has provided the soundtrack to this phenomenon: with his penchant for supposed side scenes and bizarre everyday details, he has recorded the involuntary coughs of the audience at six concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic. From quiet wheezing and hearty bellowing to a possible case of suffocation, Frei has collected all variants in his cough archive.

Shittyflute

Video Killed the Radio Star like you have never heard it before: Since 2015 a mysterious unknown artist who goes by the name of Shittyflute has published intentionally bad cover versions of popular pop hits on YouTube. The principle is always the same: out of tune, shrill recorders deconstruct the melody, taking it to the edge of the audible, but in a uniquely accomplished fashion. Even if one’s ears bleed, the shittyfluted versions of Britney Spears’s Toxic, a-ha’s Take on Me, and hundreds of other songs, have both created a distinctive genre and seriously challenged the originals for the title of most catchy version. In opposition to the immaculate surfaces of music industry products, Shittyflute now performs offline and live for the first time, incognito as ever: For No! Music Shittyflute’s music repairshop is transferred to the HKW for four days.