MaerzMusik 2026: Cybernetic Entanglements
Viola Yip / Ken Ueno
Concert Performance
Viola Yip & Ken Ueno © David Beecroft
Ticket Prices
20 Euro reduced 15 Euro
Tickets are sold via the Berliner Festspiele ticketing platform. Information at: www.berlinerfestspiele.de/maerz-musik
Ticket Prices
20 Euro reduced 15 Euro
Tickets are sold via the Berliner Festspiele ticketing platform. Information at: www.berlinerfestspiele.de/maerz-musik
“Cybernetic Entanglements” is a new work built around a new wearable musical instrument shared and performed by Ken Ueno and Viola Yip. The instrument is neither costume nor prosthesis, but an operative component of a cybernetic circuit in which the performers’ bodies function as part of the machine itself. Rather than treating technology as an extension of the body, the work presents a dynamic and permeable relationship in which body and machine continuously co-constitute one another.
Through real-time sensing, listening, and interaction, the system generates a sound world shaped by…
“Cybernetic Entanglements” is a new work built around a new wearable musical instrument shared and performed by Ken Ueno and Viola Yip. The instrument is neither costume nor prosthesis, but an operative component of a cybernetic circuit in which the performers’ bodies function as part of the machine itself. Rather than treating technology as an extension of the body, the work presents a dynamic and permeable relationship in which body and machine continuously co-constitute one another.
Through real-time sensing, listening, and interaction, the system generates a sound world shaped by micro-gestures, postural shifts, and embodied timing. These interactions articulate non-linear and relational sonic processes, revealing how agency emerges not from any single human or technical element, but from their entangled co-presence. The instrument becomes a site of negotiation – between intention and automation, control and contingency, intimacy and interference.
“Cybernetic Entanglements” foregrounds the singularity of each performer’s body – shaped by distinct backgrounds, genders, and life trajectories. Difference is not symbolic but materially operative: it conditions how sensing occurs, how signals propagate, and how sound unfolds in time. In doing so, the work reframes embodiment as an active compositional force. Situated within the framework of technodiversity, the piece articulates a cosmotechnics of embodiment: the circuit itself operates as a situated cosmology of relation, difference, and becoming, proposing an alternative vision of contemporary music-making in which technology does not erase difference, but amplifies relational complexity and cultivates new forms of sonic, corporeal, and cultural interdependence.
Visitor Information
Duration
Approx. 60 minutes
Cast
Composition and performance
Viola Yip
Ken Ueno
Cast
Composition and performance
Viola Yip
Ken Ueno
Biographies
Viola Yip ist Komponistin, Performerin, Improvisatorin, Klangkünstlerin und Instrumentenbauerin aus Hongkong. Sie entwickelt einzigartige, selbstgebaute Instrumente und klangbasierte Werke an der Schnittstelle zwischen Komposition, Performance und Improvisation. Mit Klang untersucht sie die komplexen, dynamischen Beziehungen zwischen Materialität, neuen Medien, vierdimensionalem Raum, menschlichem Körper und Maschinenkörper.
Ken Ueno ist Komponist, Sänger, Klangkünstler und Professor an der UC Berkeley. Er ist Träger des Berlin- und des Rompreises. Ein Großteil von Uenos Musik ist ‚personenbezogen‘. Dabei werden die Feinheiten der Aufführungssprache einer bestimmten Person in den Vordergrund gerückt, die untrennbar mit der Aura dieser Interpret*in verschmolzen sind. In einer zunehmend digitalisierten Welt stellt er die Personenbezogenheit gegen die Kräfte, die uns alle anonym machen.
Biographies
Viola Yip ist Komponistin, Performerin, Improvisatorin, Klangkünstlerin und Instrumentenbauerin aus Hongkong. Sie entwickelt einzigartige, selbstgebaute Instrumente und klangbasierte Werke an der Schnittstelle zwischen Komposition, Performance und Improvisation. Mit Klang untersucht sie die komplexen, dynamischen Beziehungen zwischen Materialität, neuen Medien, vierdimensionalem Raum, menschlichem Körper und Maschinenkörper.
Ken Ueno ist Komponist, Sänger, Klangkünstler und Professor an der UC Berkeley. Er ist Träger des Berlin- und des Rompreises. Ein Großteil von Uenos Musik ist ‚personenbezogen‘. Dabei werden die Feinheiten der Aufführungssprache einer bestimmten Person in den Vordergrund gerückt, die untrennbar mit der Aura dieser Interpret*in verschmolzen sind. In einer zunehmend digitalisierten Welt stellt er die Personenbezogenheit gegen die Kräfte, die uns alle anonym machen.
Visitor Information
Duration
Approx. 60 minutes
Credits
An event organised by Berliner Festspiele / MaerzMusik. “Cybernetic Entangements” is a commissioned work by MaerzMusik and the Centre for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), University of California, Berkeley.
Credits
An event organised by Berliner Festspiele / MaerzMusik. “Cybernetic Entangements” is a commissioned work by MaerzMusik and the Centre for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), University of California, Berkeley.
“Cybernetic Entanglements” is a new work built around a new wearable musical instrument shared and performed by Ken Ueno and Viola Yip. The instrument is neither costume nor prosthesis, but an operative component of a cybernetic circuit in which the performers’ bodies function as part of the machine itself. Rather than treating technology as an extension of the body, the work presents a dynamic and permeable relationship in which body and machine continuously co-constitute one another.
Through real-time sensing, listening, and interaction, the system generates a sound world shaped by micro-gestures, postural shifts, and embodied timing. These interactions articulate non-linear and relational sonic processes, revealing how agency emerges not from any single human or technical element, but from their entangled co-presence. The instrument becomes a site of negotiation – between intention and automation, control and contingency, intimacy and interference.
“Cybernetic Entanglements” foregrounds the singularity of each performer’s body – shaped by distinct backgrounds, genders, and life trajectories. Difference is not symbolic but materially operative: it conditions how sensing occurs, how signals propagate, and how sound unfolds in time. In doing so, the work reframes embodiment as an active compositional force. Situated within the framework of technodiversity, the piece articulates a cosmotechnics of embodiment: the circuit itself operates as a situated cosmology of relation, difference, and becoming, proposing an alternative vision of contemporary music-making in which technology does not erase difference, but amplifies relational complexity and cultivates new forms of sonic, corporeal, and cultural interdependence.
Cast
Composition and performance
Viola Yip
Ken Ueno
Biographies
Viola Yip ist Komponistin, Performerin, Improvisatorin, Klangkünstlerin und Instrumentenbauerin aus Hongkong. Sie entwickelt einzigartige, selbstgebaute Instrumente und klangbasierte Werke an der Schnittstelle zwischen Komposition, Performance und Improvisation. Mit Klang untersucht sie die komplexen, dynamischen Beziehungen zwischen Materialität, neuen Medien, vierdimensionalem Raum, menschlichem Körper und Maschinenkörper.
Ken Ueno ist Komponist, Sänger, Klangkünstler und Professor an der UC Berkeley. Er ist Träger des Berlin- und des Rompreises. Ein Großteil von Uenos Musik ist ‚personenbezogen‘. Dabei werden die Feinheiten der Aufführungssprache einer bestimmten Person in den Vordergrund gerückt, die untrennbar mit der Aura dieser Interpret*in verschmolzen sind. In einer zunehmend digitalisierten Welt stellt er die Personenbezogenheit gegen die Kräfte, die uns alle anonym machen.
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