works
A composition for granular presence (15’)
2023
This site specific composition for multichannel sound and light is a scene exploring the qualities of its space and different modes of relating. The piece invites to explore the edges of one's perception.
It creates a time and a space in which affects can be embraced as they occur. The work brings you to where you can tap into the more granular areas of your attention, listening and presence.
“We’re not allowing ourselves to fully experience darkness, but you create a space for that - beautiful”
“It has such a strengh - this profound darkness.
It generates a constant feeling of something is coming.
You are basically waiting for it, the whole time something is coming towards you...”
“The transitions are so smooth, you are suddenly in it, at all stages - that’s very beautiful”
...reactions to the piece from different visitors
____________________________________________“Ik vond het wel eng, maar het ging uiteindelijk... Ik zei tegen mezelf, er gebeurt niks met je. En dan voelde het als een soort beloning, dat je er bent gebleven. Echt heel goed!”
“It has such a strengh - this profound darkness.
It generates a constant feeling of something is coming.
You are basically waiting for it, the whole time something is coming towards you...”
“The transitions are so smooth, you are suddenly in it, at all stages - that’s very beautiful”
...reactions to the piece from different visitors
The blueprint of the work lets me adapt it to different spaces and circumstances. The piece existed in three different settings so far.
_____________________________________________
Advice sound engineering: Andrzej Konieczny
Technical assistance light: Maarten Keus
Images: Ira Grünberger
Video footage: Onur Cabi
SONDER
MIA 2023 - ongoing
Sonder is an audience composable installation-performance with manifold possibilities. 40 lenses come together in a curved installation, breaking different kinds of light in spectacular ways onto the audience. Accompanied by a paired score borrowing from field recording, techno and noise, the piece is played
almost as an instrument, apparatus, a sculpture come alive.
The work explores individualism and collectiveness;
it spans a dynamic range which gives time and care to small details as well as overwhelming gestures.
The audience is invited into states of introspection, wondering, chrysalism and a sense of sonder.
SONDER is a first collaborative piece by the artist group MIA (Maarten Keus, Inga Hirsch and Alexander Köppel).
Orginally created for Traumburg festival 2023, SONDER has been shown in different settings both as live performance and standalone installation.
_____________________________________________
Images: Ira Grünberger
Videography: Marlene Langbein
MIA 2024
Concept, Design and Build of the scenography for “Animalia Paradoxa” by Duda Paiva Company x Lavinia Meijer, together with Maarten Keus and Inga Hirsch.
An angled and cut open, rotating structure allowing for a diverse range of interactions and transformations. Hinting at a sinking building and subtly reminding us that the categorisation of species (as did Carl Linnaeus, the piece’s protagonist) will always fail in sight of a queer, diverse and fantastic array of creatures celebrating life.
In addition to the stage, I had the pleasure to produce the show’s sound, arranged in seven channels for theater in collaboration with Tom Doeven.
_____________________________________________
Concept & spel: Duda Paiva en Lavinia Meijer
Regie-assistent & spel: Josje Eijkenboom
Dramaturgie: Kim Kooiman
Eindregie: Arjen Arnoldussen
Muziek: Philip Glass, Lavinia Meijer, e.a.
Poppen: Duda Paiva, André Mello
Kostuums: Evita Rigert
Scenografie: MIA, Maarten Keus, Inga Hirsch, Alexander Köppel
Sound design: Alexander Köppel
Lichtontwerp: Mark Verhoef
Techniek: Mark Verhoef, Daniel Patijn, Tom Doeven, Mees Godwaldt
Productie: Merel van Marken Lichtenbelt
Marketing & pr: Hedwig van der Zwaal
Advies: Bert van de Roemer
Foto/beeld: Paulina Matusiak en Eddy Wenting
2024 - ongoing
SONIC SLEEP is a twelve hour overnight listening session aiming to explore and expand the in-betweens of waking, sleeping and dreaming when exposed to sonic stimuli.
The audience is invited to spend the entire night with us in the studio, guided by selected artists presenting a wide range of live material, ranging from DJ sets, hybrid live, electronic live to intricate self built instruments and experimental setups.
The sessions have been a wonderful experience and a blessing to organise and host - they truly offer a space for community, sound focused engagement and letting-go.
SONIC SLEEP included beautiful sonic companions, such as Andreas Tegnander, Amos Peled, Andrzej Konieczny, Maarten Keus, Inga Hirsch, THY, Jasper Mehler, Elif Soğuksu, Adomas Palekas, Myra-Ida van der Veen ...
SONIC SLEEP is a communal, non-profit effort and would not be possible without the generous help of: Alessandro Caccuri, Luca Tornato, Ira Grünberger, Nina Uzelac, Nursi Aslan, Wouter Mol and many others.
Listen to my live sets:
sonic sleep I here
and sonic sleep II here
I have created and hosted listening sessions in various formats and places - it is a continuous exploration. Feel free to contact me if you would like to participate or are looking to organise a listening session.
2021
FINSTER (- Dark [German] - syn.: sinister, gloomy, obfuscated) is a site specific installation transforming
one of the cells in the old PBC for Uncloud 2021 into a multi sensory spatial scene. It combines subjects of architecture, culture and perception.
The work embeds all surfaces of the cell in black fabric, creating a second skin, a delusive cover, which leaves the visual subordinate to olfactory, tactile and sonic stimuli.
FINSTER draws parallels to spaces which seem the farthest away from our current possibilities of unforeseen encounters - with others or oneself - where the unknown (also) makes space for excitement and freedom. The installation aims to counteract the obvious prison cell, seeking to evoke feelings of insideness and otherness and offers a place to dwell in.
“ (...) De Duitse kunstenaar Alexander Köppel bijvoorbeeld bekleedde de binnenruimte van een kleine cel met een zelf gebrouwen, glitzwarte substantie. Wie sich kort laat insluiten in de ruimte ervaart een intense, audiovisueele leegte en een soort isolatie in het kwadraat. (...)”
Robert van Gijssel, De Volkskrant, 03.11.2021
Listen to an excerpt of FINSTER here
____________________________________________
FINSTER was created in residency at Uncloud Festival 2021, titled Transliminal. Many thanks to the whole Uncloud team for their support and the almost carte blanche for this project to emerge.
Blind Drawings To Music
2019 - ongoing
Blind Drawings To Music is an ongoing project started in 2019. It is playfully capturing connections of movement and emotional response while listening to pieces of music.
_____________________________________________________
See all available drawings here
Would you like a unique blind drawing to one of your own favourite pieces of music? Please contact me for details. Thank you.
Seconds Last Friday (10’)
2023
Welcome to Seconds Last Friday. We are a rather loud stereo interplay of filtered pink noise and “standing” sine wave signals, ready for your exploration. While we chat about and shake your chest, please move around, sing along, hug a friend, touch the handrail. We play with your spatial perception, don’t be shy.
The piece explored tangible connections and inter-relations between modulated signals, the responses of the space and listening bodies.
____________________________________________
Seconds Last Friday was presented as part of the CASS concert series (CASS #2: SPEAKING OF SPACE; 02.2023), organised by the departments of Composition, Sonology and ArtScience at the Royal Conservatoire / KABK.
xx
AFTERTASTE
2022
"The time spent here so far turned out to be a disrupting collage of different sonic stimuli, rhythms and sensations. A feeling of otherworldly-ness and confused temporal perception accompanies the days. Oliveros' question of when does listening to a sound become memory comes to mind. I'd like to use these thoughts and compose with the according sound material of different spaces, times and airflows - from the low highway rumble, the canteen fridge drone to tiny sounds of the forest and soft wind. I'd imagine the piece to play with these contrasting atmospheres."
Listen to AFTERTASTE here
_____________________________________________
Developed and produced during "Site Specifics" - a field recording and listening workshop guided by Mint Park at Klankenbos, Musika Impulscentrum, Pelt (BE).
Presented at Oortreders Festival 2022
2019
Acts Of Attention (Traces) explores listening as an activity in relation to space. The installation presents uniform envelopes of seven archetypical elements of the Rietveld Building together with the artist’s own musical interpretation of their sonic origins. The sound piece (21’) is entirely produced from sounds derived from the process of tracing and those of the elements themselves. An interplay between manifestation and alienation allows for multiple perspectives on the work.
Acts Of Attention (Traces) aims to increase auditory sensitivity, to make aware that listening forms a highly important, yet often neglected part of our being in the world as sensory entities. In tracing architectural elements physically and sonically, Alexander Köppel developed a way of paying attention in which he concludes and initiates his multidisciplinary approach to the making and the perception of spaces. In the end, he points at the benefits and surprises of deliberately devoting attention to appearances previously unnoticed and hints towards imagined realities within listening.
In parallel to the installation, one is invited to find intriguing listening spots across the Rietveld Campus with the help of a small map. Specific floor tiles have been replaced, now showing a visual representation of the sonic effects present at each location. These marks aim to help discover the richness of the very sounds we are surrounded by every day.
____________________________________________
Photographs: Public Rietveld, Robert Glas
BUILDING A TURMOIL
2018
How do narratives shape our understanding of space?
How does our imagination?
How do we remember spaces and architecture?
Alexander will use the pavilion to explore our personal relations to space and architecture. This is to happen within sound pieces he will produce per day, based on narratives and voices of people interviewed on that day - so each performance will be unique. During the day, the pavilion becomes an open studio and is welcoming everybody who would like to get interviewed and contribute to the piece.
The pavilion is to become a soundspace in which the visitors find themselves confronted with an ascent of sounds and space related narrative.
Listen to BUILDING A TURMOIL here