BERLIN ATONAL

Berlin Atonal is an annual festival for experimental, mostly electronic music and images, “new methods in sound and sight”. Originally established in 1982, the Atonal festival quickly became the most popular and well regarded platform in Europe for altogether new forms of musical expression, it returned in 2013 after a 23 year hiatus. As director for light and visuals Marcel Weber is part of the festival team. His work was to develop a concept for the projections and lights setup, to communicate with the tech provider as well as with with all involved artists. Further he oversaw the shooting of the festival's video documentation and edited a review film, which was presented end 2014 in various online media.

PRESS ON BERLIN ATONAL

Video report on The Creators Project / Vice „Kirk also brought three VHS tapes, which were split vertically across the stage's massive screen backdrop. The effect was hallucinatory” – xlr8r „The final factor that Atonal has to offer, [..] is the installation art which can be found scattered throughout the colossal building, with glowing lights, intriguing sounds and pulsating visuals, these works give a new meaning to the artistic term immersive installation.” – Ransom Note „You couldn’t talk about the music without the space dominating the conversation, such was the extent that it colored the experience.” – Electronic Beats

“Atonal's venue, a redesignated power plant in Berlin's Köpeniker Straße, is a massive compound of concrete, a giant cathedral from the industrial age. All of its architectural features strive upwards, a multi-levelled arrangements of galleries and columns enclosing a massive hall, not unlike a canyon. In sacral architecture it is a common scheme, artworks have been made for such overwhelming heights for thousands of years. Embracing this character of Kraftwerk's internal landscape the idea for the projection setup was simple: The vertical format! To use a portrait format screen.

To underpin the vast dimension of the space and accomodate the projections appropriatly, the sound system was placed at the sides next to phalanxes of lights. No rigging was obfuscating the view, the massive hall was visible in full height. In addition to these lights strong stroboscopes were distributed over the space, flashing asynchronously and away from the audience, exhibiting the architecture in stark contrasts; gigantic and deconstructed.” –m