Between a Rock and a Hard Place

On 7 May, the II. Karlsruhe Integrale is between hammer and anvil in the workshops of the former munitions factory. The erstwhile workshops have been transformed into what are now academic spaces for free artists. The theme at the HfG Karlsruhe [Karlsruhe University of Art and Design] is this year’s Integral music festival entitled BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE. The performance breaks with the traditional form of a rock concert through the artistic disclosure of the hard core of this type of music.

Six regional groups will be playing constantly hard sounds on mobile stages: Horse?, Watered, All Joines, Stereo Drama, Johnboy and Buddha Sentenza. A long bar comprising five stages repeatedly breaks open, and platforms, together with PA and protagonists, disappear melodiously behind a wall of light, which only illuminates itself.

Large spotlights crisscross the space, the speed of light of which freezes into an impenetrable mass in the fog. This shatters on a monumental construction of steel sheeting before further fragmenting into fine strands that hover through the space. A head-high sphere of sound rolls between the walls of light and solid material. Steel becomes a metallic membrane for a sound installation by Kilian Ochs. The metal tubes become tubes of rock, and the public steps the stroke of the hammer dictating rhythm.