Jagoda Szmytka

Year of birth, place
1982, Legnica, Poland
Role at the ZKM
Guest Artist
Institute / Department
Institute for Music and Acoustics
At the ZKM
    2011, Januar 2014, Juli–August 2014, November–Dezember 2014, August/September 2015
Biography
Jagoda Szmytka composes contextual music for the ears, eyes, and mind. Her audiovisual compositions, written for various amplified formations and mixed media, are organized as rhisomatic connections between sounds, images, and texts. Her composition methods (social or community composing) depend on creating social music for people, with people, and about people: music concerned with issues that are important to society as a whole, community music, and the utilization and topicalization of social media. Thus a composition’s value acquires an ethical dimension. A piece proves a success if it provides a stimulus for reflection and change, and if participation in the creative process stimulates at least one of the players to think. What counts first and foremost is the playing itself: “play music and send a meaningful message”. Szmytka is the founder of PLAY, a platform for art and culture initiatives in Frankfurt am Main.