KORSONOR
2nd edition
Preamble I, Pavillon Sicli, Geneva,
16-17 August 2025
Preamble II, Geneva Botanical Garden,
22-24 August 2025
Satellite I, La Vetrina, Venice,
9-25 October 2025
Exhibition-Festival, Le Commun and other venues, Geneva,
22 October–16 November 2025
Edito
KorSonoR, a biennial exhibition-festival dedicated to sound and visual arts, explores sound in our environment, whether physical, social, technological, architectural or natural. What we refer to as sound is very broad: vocal, instrumental, electronic, field recordings, spatial resonance, sound archives, etc. Sound is omnipresent and has emotional, documentary, memorial, sociocultural, political and creative significance. Sound requires listening and attention, which help us understand people, things and situations, and stimulate the imagination. Sound involves duration, which allows us to take a step back, both towards personal introspection and an understanding of the world. More…
Preamble 1 – sound and architecture
16 – 17.8 2025
Pavillon Sicli
LABOUR – Colin Hacklander, Farahnaz Hatam
more heat than light, sound activation designed for the Sicli Pavilion, creation.
With Colin Hacklander, Farahnaz Hatam, Diana Miron, Noëlle Reymond, Massimo Pinca, and a mixed choir accompanied by Yvonne Harder and Antoine Läng
Thierry Simonot: sound engineering
60-min public performances
16.8 18h and 20h
17.8 16h and 18h
more heat than light is a new piece by LABOUR that continues their exploration of sound and ritual. Following their recent works tower of silence (2024) and death levels us all (2024), this piece considers death not as an end, but as a passage, an experience of crossing between different states of being. The artists draw inspiration from ancient Zoroastrian death rituals (Zarathustra), where music and chanting help guide the soul’s journey after death.
With this project, the artists continue to explore a format they have experimented with in several other contexts, sound activation, which explores architectural space through sound, often resulting in a sound journey where spectators move through a building, encountering interconnected sound events composed of amplified and unamplified sources. For the Sicli Pavilion, they have designed a composition that intertwines voice, percussion, electronics and two double basses.
The concrete, glass and metal building, constructed between 1966 and 1970 by architect Constantin Hilberer and engineer Heinz Isler to house a fire extinguisher factory, is now managed by the Pavillon Sicli Foundation, which is dedicated to building culture. Its curved shapes create an open acoustic environment where sound can move fluidly between spaces.
Photo © Olivier Kaeser
Preamble 2 sound and nature
22 – 24.8 2025
Geneva Botanical Garden
22.08 19h, Ensemble Batida
23.08 16h et 19h, Walter De Maria/Lucas Niggli
24.08 15h, Robin Meier Wiratunga
24.08 17h, Julie Semoroz
In the composition MOTO, movement studies by the Ensemble Batida, each performer becomes an explorer carrying the rich heritage of their individual experiences. The improvisation and system of variations inherent in musical performance are inspired by the diversity and complexity of underground root structures, whose designs, contained in the Root System Drawings atlas preserved at Wageningen University, accurately reflect the organic and often invisible genius of nature. The rhythms stimulated by the shapes and density of the roots create complex polyrhythms between contemporary music, electronic music and colourful samples. Each performance is intended to be different from the previous one. Each musician represents a letter M-O-T-O, each letter is a musical line, and the lines overlap, extend and amplify each other in the shifting sound fabric.
Cricket Music (1964) and Ocean Music (1968) are two pieces composed by Walter De Maria, a major figure in Land Art and minimal art. A drummer, De Maria played with famous musicians in the 1960s and created several minimalist sculptures that also have a sound dimension. His two compositions are also minimalist, and the recorded sounds of crickets and the ocean attest to an interest in repetitive and rhythmic musical motifs as well as in natural environments, terrain, water and sky, which are central to his practice of earth art, notably in Lightning Field (1977). In 2024, Lucas Niggli reconstructed the recordings that accompany the drum score in each of these pieces.
The other two proposals are creations specifically for the context of KorSonoR at the Conservatoire and Botanical Gardens in Geneva. Robin Meier Wiratunga’s piece, The Mind Body Problem, will take the form of a meeting with neuroscientist Sophie Schwartz, professor at the Centre for Affective Science at the University of Geneva, on the observation of dreams in animals, which raises questions about animal perception of time, the physicality of consciousness and the construction of reality. The artist will play live sounds to provide a more concrete insight into this subject, which is as scientifically complex as it is stimulating to the imagination. In a second phase, a sound diffusion will be experimented with in the greenhouse space.
With Phonosynthèse, Julie Semoroz aims to bring the greenhouse to life through sound, addressing her performance to the living beings present: plants, animals and the human audience. Immerse yourself in a collective forest where animals, wind and natural frequencies compose a living symphony based on the artist’s field recordings. In the heart of the Botanical Garden’s temperate greenhouse, let yourself be enveloped by a shifting soundscape, woven from murmurs, distant resonances and secret vibrations. Each visitor influences this ephemeral creation, becoming in turn an interpreter of this silent dialogue between humans and plants. An acoustic surprise awaits you. This poetic immersion transforms the greenhouse into a harmonious ecosystem where active listening and contemplation respond to each other. Between field recordings and live music for living beings – human and non-human – present in the greenhouse, the experience invites you to reconnect with nature – a collective ephemeral choir, where everyone participates in the music of the forest. Experience it as a sound walk, an active meditation.
Photo © Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de Genève
Satellite 1
9 – 25.10.2025
La Vetrina, Venice
Salômé Guillemin
La Vetrina, a private venue that exhibits Swiss artists in Venice, invited Arta Sperto to propose a project emblematic of the terrain explored by KorSonoR. Arta Sperto proposed Salômé Guillemin, with 50 Hertz, an installation and performance that will be presented during the Biennale Musica.
50 Hertz is a drone music performance composed of a set of neon lights and ceramics amplified by effects. The entirely analog device is based on the 50Hz buzz of household electricity: the electromagnetic radiation from the neon lights is captured by the ceramics, which produces interference on the sound signal and creates various modulations. The conductive and insulating properties of the clays and glazes used produce a raw sound material that can be shaped through a repertoire of gestures and contacts around the ceramics. Each artifact has its own repertoire of movements and sounds, allowing for different sound pieces to be created.
Exhibition-Festival
22.10 – 16.11.2025
Gilles Aubry + Ahmed Essyad
Matthieu Baumann
DARA Strings meets Chuchchepati Orchestra
Dimitri de Perrot and guests proposed by the HEM : Sam Alvarez, Jorge Care, Thomas Gurin, Elouen Hermand, Yui Terada and by Bongo Joe : Simone Aubert, Citron Citron, Cyril Yeterian
Jean-Luc Hervé in partnership with the Musicology Unit of the University of Geneva
Alexandre Joly + Daniel Zea and guests: Olga Kokcharova, Sergei Leonov with Ensemble Vortex, Jiwon Seo, Emma Souharce
Gabriela Löffel
Marie Losier
Marina Rosenfeld
Valby Vokalgruppe + Francis Baudevin
James Webb