machina & Ali M. Demirel^KR+TR

Yeohee Kim, better known as machìna, is a Korean artist based in Tokyo, a city where she articulated her own distinctive musical identity. Her music, profoundly rooted in her own individual sense of self, truly shines deep within the shared effervescence of a packed dancefloor. Her compositional style is both thoughtful and playful, drawing liberally from her love of jazz music, and clearly manifests itself in her confident modular improvisations when she performs live. Her vocals are pitch-perfect and striking, a testament to the rigorous and regimented training she underwent in her former life as a k-pop star. Through the fusion of technology, analog systems and her own trained vocals, she forged her own unique style of electronic music.

machìna recently contributed a track to a compilation released by Berlin’s iconic label Tresor. During the summer of 2021, she collaborated with British electronic duo Bicep on the wildly popular Hawk, released on Ninja Tunes, and later self-published her third album, Compass Point, in October 2021. More recently, she made her debut on London’s UTTU Label with her Trusted EP.

For her live performance, machìna will employ her ever-growing collection of modular synthesizers, drum samplers and analog gear. On stage, she’ll appear fragile; this small human form controlling a sprawling installation of interconnected machines will only accentuate this sentiment. But her ethereal vocals, simultaneously delicate and powerful, will betray this first impression.

Ali Mahmut Demirel, born in Turkey in 1972, is a Berlin-based artist. Demirel studied nuclear engineering and architecture before pursuing art. He started to make video and sound work in the early 90’s while he was a researcher at Middle East Technical University, Audio-Visual Systems Research Center.

In the 2000’s, he focused his work on real-time computer-generated images and began to create interactive live audio-visual performances. He is known for his long-term collaboration with the electronic music producer Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman), particularly exploring abstract minimal imagery with synchronised sound.

Later period, he returned to video installation work and created a video trilogy under the theme ‘Post-Apocalyptic Utopias.’ Those videos formed Demirel’s solo show titled ‘ISLE’ at Arter Istanbul in 2018. Recently he is working on a series that connects ecology, nature and myth, through an exploration of specific geographies where notable mythologies emerged.

His work has been shown at institutions and spaces such as Guggenheim Museum, New York; Arter, Istanbul; TodaysArt.NL; CTM, Berlin; ICA, London; among others. Demirel has performed live at Sonar Festival, Barcelona; Mutek Festival, Montreal; Coachella, USA; Fuji Rock Festival, Japan; Brixton Academy, London; L’Olympia, Paris; among others.

machìna & Ali M. Demirel ^KR+TR – The Bath

To take the plunge.
That point between retreat and full exposure, trepidation and ecstasy, half in the air half in the water.
The bath is every day and everywhere.
The most accessible place to enter into a meeting with ourselves.

In this performance for MUTEK 2022, machìna and Ali will create a musical and spatial bath. Expanding on ideas developed in the making of Compass Point by machina, with the aim of better understanding ourselves. The show will unfold over five stages: 'Transition - acceptance - reflection - enlightenment, and peace.' Following those emotional rhythms with the body's movements and sounds that will jar with the flow of water, the music of getting wet.