Berlin Atonal 2023: Universal Metabolism

Actress, Ain Bailey, Ana Vaz, Billy Bultheel, Bridget Polk, CTM + Skjold Rambow, Cyprien Gaillard, Deborah Stratman, Frederik Worm + Cæcilie Trier, Fritz Kahn, h.j.huwman, James Richards + Steve Reinke, Laxlan Petras + Yasmin Saleh, Livia Melzi, Malika Ziouech, Marco Fusinato, Mire Lee, Rabon Aibo, Rebecca Salvadori, Richard Sides, Romeo Castellucci, Sonia Boyce, Tot Onyx + Yuko Kaseki, Transistors of Mercy + Pixelflowers, VALIE EXPORT, Véréna Paravel + Lucien Castaing-Taylor.

Taking place between the two weekends of festival programme, Universal Metabolism represents an ambitious point of departure for Berlin Atonal, challenging the creative potential of the Kraftwerk complex ever further and augmenting the mode of artistic communication within its function as a music festival. Universal Metabolism is an extension of Berlin Atonal that inherits the formal experimentation of its landmark predecessor exhibition Metabolic Rift. This new project encompasses over two dozen artworks arranged around the Kraftwerk and its interstices. The works range from durable objects in space to unstable and unpredictable sequenced events. This assemblage projects a collection through time, a dynamic series, each day concluding in a specific and different performance based end-point. Using the sparse building, the exhibition borrows from theatre to create a stageless, seatless auditorium where works and protagonists blend with audience members and their perceptions. The exhibition takes as a starting point the bodily and extra-bodily cycles of exchange, adaption and transformation.