Dates: Friday, 25 and Sunday, 27 April 2025
Friday: 19:30-23:00 CET
Sunday: 13:00-17:00 CET
Entrance: 0/3/5/7/10 euro (pay wat you can)
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)
How do flowers, plants and animals think about karaoke, ceramics and newspapers? During this multispecies festival, the platform for extratonality explores different ways to give other species a place within the creative field. On Friday, we focus on multispecies communication, while on Sunday we look at other forms of collaboration. In both cases, we want to shake up anthropocentrism in art and look at new approaches to non-human art and performance. Just as animals, plants and other ecosystems are part of our world, they should also be an equal part of the art we create.
Friday, 25 April. 19:30-23:00
Lindertje Mans is a singer and music theatre maker with an interest in the chicken, an animal that has always been close to her. 'Chicks in Dialogue' is an attempt to connect with this sister species. During an interactive performance-lecture, Mans shares what she has learned about chicken language and offers the participant a collective sound exercise.
https://firmames.nl/over-ons/lindertje-mans
Niek Hilkmann & Mathijs van Oosterhoudt demonstrate the prototype of the 'Multispecies Karaoke'. This project is a follow-up to Hilkmann's earlier 'Spreeuwenkaraoke', an installation made for the Natural History Museum Rotterdam. For this new project, software was developed that invites the karaoke singer to imitate the communication of various non-human beings using interactive spectrograms and transcribed sounds. During the evening, the program will be explained and the visitor will have the opportunity to try it out.
https://www.niekhilkmann.nl/
https://supermuch.itch.io/
Yoana Buzova & Matthias Hurtl present 'Listening to the Cracks', an ongoing research project exploring the often inaudible sounds of urban nature. Matthias and Yoana invite you to join a live listening session at Gouwplein in Oud-Charlois, to discover the unheard, unnoticed and barely-there whispered calls of bats and rodents.
Sunday, 27 April. 13:00-17:00
On Sunday, they lead a site-specific soundwalk through Oud-Charlois, uncovering hidden "cracks" in the urban fabric. Woven from field recordings and narratives in the Varia neighborhood, this walk is not just about listening, but also about feeling-with, about meeting the more-than-human in a shared presence.
https://oyoana.com/about.html
https://matthiashurtl.info/
Gijsje Heemskerk, Shani Leseman, Norbert Storm and the pigeons of Rotterdam and The Hague showcase 'Message from the Pigeon', a video work in which the pigeons of Rotterdam South take center stage. The project came about during several months of artistic research facilitated by Boijmans op Zuid into the relationship between humans and pigeons. Together we look at the result of this work and discuss the multispecies manifesto to which Heemskerk contributed.
https://cargocollective.com/gijsjeheemskerk
https://shanileseman.nl/
https://themultispeciescollective.cargo.site/
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Antye Guenther works around themes such as computer-brain analogies and supercomputing, 3D anatomical imaging practices and the role of 3D bodies in contemporary society, fictionality of science and speculative ceramics, as well as power structures underlying knowledge and data production. For the multispecies festival she is preparing a tea ceremony, 'Spilling the Tea of Rat Brain Data', with which she aims to contribute to a conversation about multispecies collaborations.
Mingus Janssen is a writer and visual artist who is concerned with the (re)introduction of more-than-human perspectives in the human worldview. To this end, he recently founded Mycelium Media, a publishing house that infiltrates magazines, newspapers and books to add more-than-human perspectives. For example, Mycelium Media publishes Non-Human Newspapers: newspapers where each edition is dedicated to a different (threatened) ecosystem in which all articles and content are written from the perspectives of the beings and entities that are part of the (threatened) ecosystem. Mingus Janssen is currently in the process of founding 'Ondergronds Socialisme', a political party that is committed to the more-than-human life that exists underground.
https://www.kunstbus.nl/cultuur/Mingus+Janssen.html
This event is made possible with the kind support of CBK Rotterdam, Roodkapje, Popunie Rotterdam, Stichting Volkskracht, Fonds Podiumkunsten, Gemeente Rotterdam and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.