Disturbed Ground
CTM Festival 2026
Concert Film Performance
Mark Bain © Ksenia Yanko
Khrystyna Kirik © Promo
Ticket Prices
25 Euros reduced to 20 Euros
Tickets are sold via the CTM Festival ticketing platform:
www.ctm-festival.de/festival-2026/tickets
“Disturbed Ground“ is a collaboration between Kyiv’s ∄ and CTM Festival, supported by the Goethe-Institut Co-production Fund, uniting Ukrainian and international artists to address the ecological consequences of war. In “The Core“, Khrystyna Kirik and Mark Bain use seismic data from missile strikes and daily tremors to turn violence into vibration, exploring how land absorbs and transmits pain. “Heavy Waters“ by undo despot, Zeynep Schilling, and alen hast + myk rudik gives voice to war-scarred rivers and poisoned landscapes, where water carries both contamination and memory. A companion video by Vartan Markarian, “Horizons of Disappearance“, reflects on forests as fragile refuges under threat from war and climate change.
Visitor Information
Programme
Khrystyna Kirik x Mark Bain with lights by zeroday
„The Core“
undo despot x Zeynep Schilling x alen hast + myk rudik
„Heavy Waters“
Vartan Markarian
„Horizons of Extinction“
Cast
With
Khrystyna Kirik
Mark Bain
zeroday
undo despot
Zeynep Schilling
alen hast + myk rudik
Vartan Markarian
Cast
With
Khrystyna Kirik
Mark Bain
zeroday
undo despot
Zeynep Schilling
alen hast + myk rudik
Vartan Markarian
Biographies
Khrystyna Kirik’s immersive work within improvisation, electronics, voice, double bass, piano, field recordings and found sonic objects is shaped by a “beginner’s mind“: a willingness to strip expectation away and attune to the frequency of that which is oft-ignored. Trained in jazz and free-improvisation, her performances, theatre and compositional works find and create instances where the mundane might resonate. Alongside this she develops workshops and residencies, spaces for deep listening and shared experiences.
Mark Bain makes spaces resonate with oscillations tuned to their physical limits. Rooted in a family background of architecture, Bain’s work has earned labels like “anti-architect“ as he extends Gordon Matta-Clark’s radical deconstructions into the aural realm. Using seismographic sensors and custom-built devices, Bain amplifies the otherwise imperceptible vibrations of buildings, bridges, and the ground itself, sonically destabilising the sites his works inhabit to reveal their fragile, vibrating cores.
zeroday’s practice is shaped by the nocturnal soundscape of Kyiv, where architecture, resonance, and memory converge. His work treats sound as a spatial and temporal material, tracing environments through frequency, pressure, and disappearance. Rather than fixed compositions, his pieces unfold as shifting sonic geographies. In collaboration with ∄, zeroday develops performances and installations that integrate sound with light and spatial conditions.
As creative director of Kyiv’s u2203, a studio delving into the utmost cutting edges of scenography, light composition, digital art and design, 3D game development, web and sound design as practice, alen hast’s own work pivots on the tension between control and chaos, modulating space together with narrative and letting code map emotional topographies. Using the tectonic language of architecture and the dynamic spectatorship of games, his virtual spaces are sculpted as something that one inhabits rather than observes.
Based in Kyiv, Mykyta Rudik is an artist who transitioned from architecture to the realm of generative design. Drawing on computational techniques and algorithmic systems, he produces digital compositions that echo architecture’s spatial logic without being confined to physical structures. His creative method focuses on setting up conditions and parameters that let form evolve through process, emphasizing emergence over direct creation.
Hailing from Odesa, undo despot’s live practice leans heavily on tools like Max/MSP to decode and re-weave ambient textures, noise, industrial debris, and academic tones into volatile and intimate structures, bereft of boundaries and pulling from deconstructed visuals and alternative record influences, ambient, trance and techno fragments. She’s released several works with the Kyiv-based Standard Deviation.
Zeynep Schilling dissects the invisible frameworks of human connection from power dynamics and surveillance to intimacy, and demonstrates how perception itself is mediated by systems, screens, and time. Her mind works towards reimagining technology as part of humanity’s emotional landscape rather than merely a tool. Often approaching moving images and installations as extensions of her personal choreography, humour and surprise remain critical tools in her practice.
Biographies
Khrystyna Kirik’s immersive work within improvisation, electronics, voice, double bass, piano, field recordings and found sonic objects is shaped by a “beginner’s mind“: a willingness to strip expectation away and attune to the frequency of that which is oft-ignored. Trained in jazz and free-improvisation, her performances, theatre and compositional works find and create instances where the mundane might resonate. Alongside this she develops workshops and residencies, spaces for deep listening and shared experiences.
Mark Bain makes spaces resonate with oscillations tuned to their physical limits. Rooted in a family background of architecture, Bain’s work has earned labels like “anti-architect“ as he extends Gordon Matta-Clark’s radical deconstructions into the aural realm. Using seismographic sensors and custom-built devices, Bain amplifies the otherwise imperceptible vibrations of buildings, bridges, and the ground itself, sonically destabilising the sites his works inhabit to reveal their fragile, vibrating cores.
zeroday’s practice is shaped by the nocturnal soundscape of Kyiv, where architecture, resonance, and memory converge. His work treats sound as a spatial and temporal material, tracing environments through frequency, pressure, and disappearance. Rather than fixed compositions, his pieces unfold as shifting sonic geographies. In collaboration with ∄, zeroday develops performances and installations that integrate sound with light and spatial conditions.
As creative director of Kyiv’s u2203, a studio delving into the utmost cutting edges of scenography, light composition, digital art and design, 3D game development, web and sound design as practice, alen hast’s own work pivots on the tension between control and chaos, modulating space together with narrative and letting code map emotional topographies. Using the tectonic language of architecture and the dynamic spectatorship of games, his virtual spaces are sculpted as something that one inhabits rather than observes.
Based in Kyiv, Mykyta Rudik is an artist who transitioned from architecture to the realm of generative design. Drawing on computational techniques and algorithmic systems, he produces digital compositions that echo architecture’s spatial logic without being confined to physical structures. His creative method focuses on setting up conditions and parameters that let form evolve through process, emphasizing emergence over direct creation.
Hailing from Odesa, undo despot’s live practice leans heavily on tools like Max/MSP to decode and re-weave ambient textures, noise, industrial debris, and academic tones into volatile and intimate structures, bereft of boundaries and pulling from deconstructed visuals and alternative record influences, ambient, trance and techno fragments. She’s released several works with the Kyiv-based Standard Deviation.
Zeynep Schilling dissects the invisible frameworks of human connection from power dynamics and surveillance to intimacy, and demonstrates how perception itself is mediated by systems, screens, and time. Her mind works towards reimagining technology as part of humanity’s emotional landscape rather than merely a tool. Often approaching moving images and installations as extensions of her personal choreography, humour and surprise remain critical tools in her practice.
Programme
Khrystyna Kirik x Mark Bain with lights by zeroday
„The Core“
undo despot x Zeynep Schilling x alen hast + myk rudik
„Heavy Waters“
Vartan Markarian
„Horizons of Extinction“
Visitor Information
Credits
Disturbed Ground is a co-production of ∄ and CTM Festival with support from the Goethe-Institut's International Co-Production Fund. Curated by Mariana Berezovska, alen hast (u2203 Studio), ∄ and CTM Festival.
“The Core” by Khrystyna Kirik and Mark Bain is supported by Deutschlandfunk Kultur / Klangkunst, ORF and tekhnē as part of the CTM Radio Lab. tekhnē is co-funded by the European Union. However, the views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.
The video work “Horizons of Disappearance“ was created as part of “Echoes of the Earth“, a project by Mariana Berezovska, Mila Kostiana and alen hast, supported by ∄ and the Goethe-Institut Ukraine.
CTM Festival: Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Supported by the Goethe-Institut, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, ORF Österreichischer Rundfunk, tekhné, the European Union, the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOFICE as part of Kore·A·Round Culture 2025, and the Office of the Government of Québec in Berlin. In collaboration with ∄ and WeSA.
Media partnerships CTM: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, radioeins, Refuge Worldwide, The Wire.
Media partnerships Radialsystem: The Berliner, Rausgegangen, tip Berlin, taz. die tageszeitung.
Credits
Disturbed Ground is a co-production of ∄ and CTM Festival with support from the Goethe-Institut's International Co-Production Fund. Curated by Mariana Berezovska, alen hast (u2203 Studio), ∄ and CTM Festival.
“The Core” by Khrystyna Kirik and Mark Bain is supported by Deutschlandfunk Kultur / Klangkunst, ORF and tekhnē as part of the CTM Radio Lab. tekhnē is co-funded by the European Union. However, the views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.
The video work “Horizons of Disappearance“ was created as part of “Echoes of the Earth“, a project by Mariana Berezovska, Mila Kostiana and alen hast, supported by ∄ and the Goethe-Institut Ukraine.
CTM Festival: Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Supported by the Goethe-Institut, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, ORF Österreichischer Rundfunk, tekhné, the European Union, the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOFICE as part of Kore·A·Round Culture 2025, and the Office of the Government of Québec in Berlin. In collaboration with ∄ and WeSA.
Media partnerships CTM: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, radioeins, Refuge Worldwide, The Wire.
Media partnerships Radialsystem: The Berliner, Rausgegangen, tip Berlin, taz. die tageszeitung.
“Disturbed Ground“ is a collaboration between Kyiv’s ∄ and CTM Festival, supported by the Goethe-Institut Co-production Fund, uniting Ukrainian and international artists to address the ecological consequences of war. In “The Core“, Khrystyna Kirik and Mark Bain use seismic data from missile strikes and daily tremors to turn violence into vibration, exploring how land absorbs and transmits pain. “Heavy Waters“ by undo despot, Zeynep Schilling, and alen hast + myk rudik gives voice to war-scarred rivers and poisoned landscapes, where water carries both contamination and memory. A companion video by Vartan Markarian, “Horizons of Disappearance“, reflects on forests as fragile refuges under threat from war and climate change.
Cast
With
Khrystyna Kirik
Mark Bain
zeroday
undo despot
Zeynep Schilling
alen hast + myk rudik
Vartan Markarian
Biographies
Khrystyna Kirik’s immersive work within improvisation, electronics, voice, double bass, piano, field recordings and found sonic objects is shaped by a “beginner’s mind“: a willingness to strip expectation away and attune to the frequency of that which is oft-ignored. Trained in jazz and free-improvisation, her performances, theatre and compositional works find and create instances where the mundane might resonate. Alongside this she develops workshops and residencies, spaces for deep listening and shared experiences.
Mark Bain makes spaces resonate with oscillations tuned to their physical limits. Rooted in a family background of architecture, Bain’s work has earned labels like “anti-architect“ as he extends Gordon Matta-Clark’s radical deconstructions into the aural realm. Using seismographic sensors and custom-built devices, Bain amplifies the otherwise imperceptible vibrations of buildings, bridges, and the ground itself, sonically destabilising the sites his works inhabit to reveal their fragile, vibrating cores.
zeroday’s practice is shaped by the nocturnal soundscape of Kyiv, where architecture, resonance, and memory converge. His work treats sound as a spatial and temporal material, tracing environments through frequency, pressure, and disappearance. Rather than fixed compositions, his pieces unfold as shifting sonic geographies. In collaboration with ∄, zeroday develops performances and installations that integrate sound with light and spatial conditions.
As creative director of Kyiv’s u2203, a studio delving into the utmost cutting edges of scenography, light composition, digital art and design, 3D game development, web and sound design as practice, alen hast’s own work pivots on the tension between control and chaos, modulating space together with narrative and letting code map emotional topographies. Using the tectonic language of architecture and the dynamic spectatorship of games, his virtual spaces are sculpted as something that one inhabits rather than observes.
Based in Kyiv, Mykyta Rudik is an artist who transitioned from architecture to the realm of generative design. Drawing on computational techniques and algorithmic systems, he produces digital compositions that echo architecture’s spatial logic without being confined to physical structures. His creative method focuses on setting up conditions and parameters that let form evolve through process, emphasizing emergence over direct creation.
Hailing from Odesa, undo despot’s live practice leans heavily on tools like Max/MSP to decode and re-weave ambient textures, noise, industrial debris, and academic tones into volatile and intimate structures, bereft of boundaries and pulling from deconstructed visuals and alternative record influences, ambient, trance and techno fragments. She’s released several works with the Kyiv-based Standard Deviation.
Zeynep Schilling dissects the invisible frameworks of human connection from power dynamics and surveillance to intimacy, and demonstrates how perception itself is mediated by systems, screens, and time. Her mind works towards reimagining technology as part of humanity’s emotional landscape rather than merely a tool. Often approaching moving images and installations as extensions of her personal choreography, humour and surprise remain critical tools in her practice.
