Art’s Birthday 2008

On 17 January 2008, there will be a celebration of "Art’s Birthday" as a memorial to the Fluxus artist Robert Filliou. In 1963, he claimed that art had been born precisely 1,000 years earlier, to be exact, on 17 January, his own birthday. Filliou appointed a fictional event as art’s hour of birth, namely "when someone let a dry sponge fall into a bucket of water," and remarked with self-irony: "modest beginnings, but look at us now."
Since Filliou’s death in 1987, artists throughout the world have carried forth his concept of "Art’s Birthday" as the "Eternal Network" or "Fête permanente" with "mailart", fax, and "slow scan tv events."
The Ars Acustica Group of the European Broadcast Union (EBU) has also been part of the celebrations for the past four years. Through the EBU satellite channels "Verdi" and "Ravel," "acoustic gifts" are distributed to art by the participating international radio stations.

Participating sites this year, all broadcasting live, are: Belgrade, Berlin, Bratislava, Brussels, Dublin, Helsinki, Hilversum, Karlsruhe, Ljubljana, Madrid, Prague, Stockholm, Vienna, and Zagreb.

The motto of this year’s birthday celebration is: "Forever Young." Musicians, sound artists, and composers take a position in response to the question of what our pop culture and pop music might sound like in the future. The result will be a live broadcast tour de force of the sounds and music. For this, SWR2 has organized a four-hour live concert in the ZKM_Media Theater with electronic legends, jazz greats, and an outstanding vocal soloist.
 

With

Jaap Blonk (Splink/Braaxtaal), sound poetry
Martin Brandlmayr (Radian/Trapist/Polwechsel), acoustics, electronics
Werner Dafeldecker (Polwechsel), contra bass, electronics
Markus Popp (Oval), Electronics
Matthias Schubert (Matthias Schubert Quartett/James Choice Orchestra), Saxophone

Live stream of the concert: www.swr2.de (8:05 p.m. until midnight)
SWR2 will participate live in the "celebrations" at ZKM from 11:05 p.m.