Workshop [Morphine Raum Berlin]
Hardi Kurda / Karen Chalco
Sound Artist Hardi Kurda is a sound artist, violinist, improviser, composer, researcher, founder and curator of SPACE21 Sound Gallery (Slemani) and Archive Khanah, he fosters international collaboration and sonic archiving in Kurdistan. Hardi is a visiting researcher at Goldsmiths and the University of Sulaimani, a jury member for the Gaudeamus Award, a co-researcher at the University of Geneva, and a former jury member for the Swedish Art Council. His works defy the boundaries of music and sound through his evocative interplay of suggestive, unconventional sounds, unexpected silences, and textured noise. He includes interactive approaches to his works such as the interactive radio antenna where he explores noises that may have been considered illegal, abandoned, unheard, invisible, broken, distorted, untold, forgotten, or simply noises from nowhere, without a place or destination. Through using radio frequencies as sound material, Hardi bridges the physical and metaphysical, turning ephemeral signals into interactive performances that he developed the concept of The Found Score to connect noises deeply with audiences to create Urgent Listening where listening became a force of necessity based on his listening’s experience when he illegally moved to Europe. His practice spans classical acoustic composition, electronic music, and interdisciplinary pieces where sound merges with other art forms to create transformative listening experiences.
Title of the performance: Listening as Witness. My interactive radio performances transform the act of listening into a shared, urgent practice. By blending my voice with environmental noises, radio static, ambient hums, and the subtle movements of people, I create living scores that challenge the boundaries between noise, music, and social experience. These performances are immersive and participatory: audiences are invited to improvise alongside me, dissolving the usual roles of composer, performer, and listener. The radio becomes both instrument and stage, transmitting overlooked and forbidden sounds that reflect on memory, belonging, and displacement. Through site-specific recordings and real-time interaction, I uncover the poetic and political force of noise, turning listening into an act of witnessing, archiving, and transformation. Each performance reimagines the familiar and the hidden, urging us to listen as we reshape our understanding of place and identity.
(photo by Emptyblue)
Karen Chalco is a sound improviser (Lima, Peru, 1991) in constant learning, exploring noise and freely experimenting with DIY electronic circuits, soundscape recordings, and programming in free software.
Since 2019, she has performed noise sets in various concert series in Peru (“La escucha como acción,” “Minutos para el fin,” “Deshumanización,” “La Trenza Sonora,” among others); Argentina (“Ciclo Campo Cercano”); and Germany (“Toma Chocolate #10” and “Terminal #14”). She has also participated in hybrid artistic events in Peru (“Burdel de poesía,” “Desborde,” and “Antes del viaje: experiencias sonoras”); compilations and broadcasts in Peru (“Asimtria 15 y 17 – Pumpumyachkan,” “Escuchatón Vol. 1 y 2: playlist experimental,” and “Todos los faros de la costa peruana”); Ecuador (“Vivir dentro del ruido. Ruido del vivir dentro”); Argentina (“Xplore: música libre producida con TidalCycles” and “Transversal Sonora: Sonidos en diálogo”); Colombia (“Escuchar murmullos de ciudad distantes” and “Franja memoria: uniendo los puntos”); Palestine (“Sonic Liberation Front: Peruvian Artists in Solidarity”); and Germany (“Listening to the Universe: Matter of Space – Datscha Radio”).
She has taken part in virtual festivals in Peru (“Pensar los sonidos,” “Mutaciones ((Audio))Visuales,” and “TranskPiksel 2021”); Argentina (“Santo Noise Audio Rooms 2020”); Spain (“Flushing Toilets #10”); and Mexico (“Expresiones Contemporáneas 2021” and “Sonidos desde el Núcleo: FME 20.21, date 12”).She has created and collaborated on experimental audiovisual pieces presented at festivals in Peru, Argentina, France, Spain, and Italy (“instantes para (no) encontrarnos,” “ellas, las más indias,” “mensaje a la difusión,” and “enterrar la cara”). In 2019, she participated in several modules of the diploma program in Sound Creation with New Technologies at CMMAS (Morelia, Mexico).
She will perform fragments of random and wandering sound recordings converging with persistent vibrations that sometimes linger (me) as transfigured noise inhabiting new spaces between disgressions, intentions and dispersions
(photo by elparaderocultural)
VENUE: * Morphine Raum Berlin – Köpenicker Straße 147 Hinterhof, 1. Etage, 10997 Berlin