Known for her experimental and deeply moving climate music, Kat’s work has been covered in a Marie Claire Italy feature “Tutto suona, quali sono i rumori che ci fanno bene” (All sounds, what are the noises that are good for us?”
The Matter of the Soul limited edition cassette is currently available for purchase at Berlin independent book shop Zabriskie Buchladen. Head over to their website or in person in Berlin to get your copy.
Solidarity Fund · Hydro In the wake of devastating floods that hit Slovenia in early August, many find themselves without homes and irreplaceable memories. In partnership with Kamizdat Label, we wish to lend a helping hand to these resilient people by curating an online audio compilation that features the generous contributions of artists who have donated their music to this cause. All financial contributions from the sale of the compilation will be sent to the flood relief fund of the Volunteer Fire Fighting Society, Črna na Koroškem. Our hearts go to those who depend on gestures of solidarity at the time of our planetary transformations.
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Solidarnostni sklad · Hidro
Po uničujočih poplavah, ki so Slovenijo prizadele v začetku avgusta, so mnogi ostali brez domov in nenadomestljivih spominov. V sodelovanju z založbo Kamizdat želimo tem vztrajnim ljudem ponuditi pomoč s spletno zvočno kompilacijo, na kateri so zbrani prispevki umetnikov, ki so za ta namen darovali svojo glasbo. Vse finančne prispevke od prodaje kompilacije bomo nakazali v sklad Prostovoljnega gasilskega društva Črna na Koroškem. Naša srca so z vsemi, ki so odvisni od solidarnostnih gest v času naših planetarnih sprememb.
OR poiesis · Tsuki no jūryoku Brandon LaBelle · Planetary Listening Brane Zorman · The Tree Spirits I Touch (excerpt) Bojana Šaljić P. · The Last Animal / Ujjayi * Toni Dimitrov · A Night at Letea Karmen Ponikvar · Look, the snowflakes are moving upwards (excerpt) Mauricio Valdés San Emeterio · Ejarbe ** Dronišnica · It’s Time to Drink Water Kikiriki · Drop Brgs · Mushroom Therapy (remix) Irena Pivka · EchoWalk Kat Austen · Multifurcation (Movement 4 from The Matter of the Soul Symphony) Hugo Lioret · Interchange [43.961436, 1.019804] Lena Ortega · Dandelion David Bilek · Intermezzo for a Confused Dragonfly mʊdʌki · soft txt I mʊdʌki · soft txt II Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec · Lost Algoritmhs Saša Spačal · Anatomy of a Symbiosis: Slicing 12 Miha Godec · Echoing Tides Shekuza · Stay Strong AGF · Elemental Slovenia Zergon · Pralik Sujevera · River Tensions Manja Ristić · Schwarze Aist [Austrian––Czech Borderlands, July 2023] Luka Prinčič ·coHydrogen beepblip · Voluminous Movement of a Watery Earth (excerpt) Robertina Šebjanič · hydro_Agitations
* Ocean breath
** Increase of the volume of water in rivers due to heavy rainfall.
credits
released September 1, 2023
Robertina Šebjanič, Ida Hiršenfelder · curators, graphic design Luka Prinčič · mastering Luka T. Zagoričnik, Luka Prinčič · executive production, promotion
In 2017 Kat went to Nunavut in the Arctic on a residency with Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, to carry out artistic research into the reaction of ice and water to the climate crisis through sound. It was for this residency that Kat developed circuit bent instruments from scientific equipment usually used to measure chemical and physical properties of water, like temperature and acidity. Kat used these to listen to the process of measurement, as a comment on not only the rapidly changing Arctic environment, but also the datafication of human relations to environmental catastrophe.
The resulting work, The Matter of the Soul, has been featured on the BBC and performed around the globe including at COP24 in 2018 as part of the Greenpeace ClimateHub in Katowice.
Kat has gone on to apply these instruments to many other environments and ecosystems, including Lausitz for This Land Is Not Mine and liminal landscapes as part of my compositions for Mapping Gender.
She will be presenting this work on 31st August as part of the Sounding Elements convened by Samuel Hertz, Sasha Englemann and Indira Lemouci at the Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference.
In case you missed the radio show featuring the first part of The Matter of the Soul | Symphony on May the 5th 2020 on p-node radio hosted by Klio Krahewska you can now download and listen to the playlist (archive Tuesday, 5/07, 18h, Klio).
Kat’s work has been featured by Berliner Gazette as one of their Impulses for their 20th Anniversary MORE WORLD feature, which explores the role of collectivity in addressing climate change.
The Matter of the Soul | Symphony video will be screened on 28th May at Surfrider Foundation for L’eau en movement, conception de la matière curated by Ateliers Avenue de la Milady, Biarritz as part of Fête de la Nature Biarritz. The evening line-up is:
Première Partie – Creasy John : 20h – 21h Source – Guillaume YoMk : 21h – 22h Matter of the Soul – Kat Austen : 22h – 23h
14th October 2018
National Technical Museum – Center for Architectural Heritage Plasy,
Plasy Monastery, Czech Republic
The video for biphasic | The Matter of the Soul, will be screened for the first time at Architecture and the Senses, a symposium organised by the Agosto Foundation at National Technical Museum – Center for Architectural Heritage Plasy, Mathey Hall, Plasy Monastery, Opatská konírna.
biphasic is the first movement of The Matter of the Soul symphony. This three-part symphony explores the relationship between human movement and the dispersal of Arctic water, creating in the process digital artefacts that disperse online. It is an elaboration of identity and meta-identity in the shifting times of climate crisis, interweaving socio-politics, individual needs and desires, and global impacts of human activity.
In biphasic, two discrete entities exist alongside each other, but not together, not mixing.