Natalia Kiës and Elias Wessel

In this episode in German language, musician Natalia Kiës and photographer Elias Wessel discuss the project “It’s Complicated - Ist möglicherweise Kunst". The conversation facilitated by Dr. Layla Zami addresses information overflow, photography as painting, and the possibility for sound art to intervene into social media algorithms.

In Conversation With

Natalia Kiës

Natalia Kiës has been always communicative, her main language is music: While her contemporaries mauled their flutes, melodica and glockenspiel to create some sound, five-year-old Natalia sat in front of the piano at home to practice classical music with childish enthusiasm. This idyll was cut off after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, as her family moved from Upper Silesia to Germany and Natalia was forced to leave her beloved piano behind. At first she was forced to take a break from her passion for music, but the urge to dedicate her life to music only grew.

She studied classical piano at Folkwang University of the Arts Essen followed by Jazz/Pop vocals at ArtEZ University of the Arts Arnhem. She also completed a second degree in psychology at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf on the influence of music and stress on cognitive performance. In New York, she completed master classes with Gretchen Parlato, Kurt Elling, Shai Maestro and Taylor Eigsti. With Percussionist and Grammy Award-Winner Keita Ogawa, Moto Fukushima on bass and Manu Schlindwein as producer, JazzSick Records released her latest Album “Phœnix” in February 2023.

Website

Spotify

Youtube

Instagram @nataliakiesmusic

Elias Wessel

Elias Wessel was born in Bonn, Germany and is based in New York City since 2008. In an age of fast-changing technologies, offering numerous ways of generating images, he challenges the conventional definition of painting: Wessel creates his “paintings” without resorting to traditional painting techniques and eschews classical genres. The artist’s abstract works—which in many ways show connections to painterly practices—are in fact made up of photographs and digital material. Over the past several years, his practice has been increasingly focused on investigating the effects of digitization and the digital tools themselves. Above all, the quality of Elias Wessel’s working method lies in the way he links fundamental discourses in the history of photography with latest technologies and current sociopolitical issues.

Website

Intermedial Digital Experience "Sprung in die Zeit / Leap Into Time"

References

Current Exhibition in Berlin

“Elias Wessel: Delirious Images - Fotografien für die nächste Gesellschaft”


March 4–May 7, 2023

Kunstsammlung im Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin

Exhibition Film

“Elias Wessel—It’s Complicated, Is Possibly Art” by Edna Luise Biesold

September 7–23, 2022

1014 New York

Curated by Alina Girshovich. With an audiowork by Natalia Kiës.

Latest Books

“Elias Wessel: Ästhetik des Konflikts” [Aesthetics of Conflict]
Verlag Kettler, Dortmund (2023)

“Textfetzen. It’s Complicated: Texte aus einem a/sozialen Netzwerk 2019–2021. Ist möglicherweise Kunst.”
Kulturverlag Kadmos, Berlin (2022)

Expressions

NFT

Short for "non-fungible token", refers to an informatic technology that can certify the ownership of a digital asset. Over the last decade the uprising of NFT allowed digital assets (esp. crypto currency and digital art) to become an object of financial speculation.

The Black Square (Malevich)

A painting created by Kazimir Malevich in 1915. The painting "only" depicts a black square, which is often referred to as a critical approach to and revolutionary moment in art history.

Credits

Sounds

“Crystalline”, (Natalia Kiës, Single from the new Album Phœnix, 2022)

It’s Complicated – No. 6: Ist möglicherweise Kunst (Elias Wessel, Audio 2:09 min, 2021)

Systems at Play (Natalia Kiës, Audio composition made from Ist möglicherweise Kunst 3:04 min, 2022)

Visuals

Exhibition view of “Elias Wessel — It's Complicated, Is Possibly Art,” September 7–23, 2022 at 1014 New York.

The audio installation is simultaneously playing all audio works from the series “Ist möglicherweise Kunst” (all images © 2023 VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn).

Podcast Info

Concept

Dr. Layla Zami, Postdoctoral Researcher in Performance Studies

Producer
Freie Universität Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts
(SFB 1512 Intervenierende Künste, TP B05)

Funded by
German Research Society (DFG)

In Cooperation with

FU Berlin, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft

Eufoniker Audioproduktion

Special Thanks

P&T Knitwear Bookstore and Podcast Studio, New York