Concert Series TURNS

Press Release

In February, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe is launching a new concert series called TURNS that will play with the audience's listening habits. Once a month, ZKM | Hertzlab invites you to discover new perspectives on electronic music and sound art in the concert venue ZKM | Kubus. International and local artists will encourage you to expand your understanding of sound – in performances, participatory installations, and interactive formats. TURNS will kick off with a free double concert on February 14 with Ioana Vreme Moser, Nina Guo, and Max Eilbacher. [TURNS: Screaming Minerals x Three Voices, February 14, 2025, 7 pm, ZKM | Karlsruhe]

With the new concert series TURNS, curated by Lea Luka Sikau, the ZKM | Hertzlab creates spaces that play with our listening habits: electro-trash becomes a choir, music meets stomach noises, gamers become performers. The audience space itself moves into the center and becomes a place of shared experience, where you can meet and playfully question sound. International and local artists present performances, participatory installations, and playful approaches that put the audience in the center.
To kick off the series on February 14, ZKM | Kubus will present a double concert. The guests are Romanian sound artist Ioana Vreme Moser, soprano Nina Guo, and sound artist Max Eilbacher.
In "Screaming Minerals," Ioana Vreme Moser focuses on the toxicity of electronic components. From deep mines and beauty parlors to contaminated wastelands, Moser uses an experimental performance to show how toxic minerals spread from our lips to our machines. Afterwards, Morton Feldman's work "Three Voices" (1982) unfolds as a hypnotic "Hall of Mirrors," in which soprano Nina Guo sings live to two pre-produced versions of her own voice. Supported by Max Eilbacher, the work is reimagined in the unique sound infrastructure of ZKM | Kubus – the Klangdom: repeating melodies subtly shift, creating a fascinating blend of familiarity and strangeness.

Themes of the concert series TURNS
The thematic framework for TURNS is formed by three curatorial cycles: SOUNDING CYCLES (February–April 2025), SOUNDING OUT HEALTH (May–August 2025) and SOUNDING OUT CONNECTION (September–December 2025). They combine social discourse, artistic research, and musical expression to create immersive experiences that emphasize process and collective experimentation.
The first cycle, SOUNDING CYCLES, is dedicated to cyclical rhythms, circular movements, and repetitive vibrations. Artists stage the momentum of material, bring the political moment of sound to the fore and weave past traditions with motion capture.