Activities

Inventionen 2010 and s.low projekt

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:22:29 +0100

A quick update on my activities: I will be visiting in Berlin for two events. One is the Inventionen 2010 festival, which is organized by DAAD, TUB (Technical University in Berlin) and BEAST. I will be presenting my new piece, Painting Nahhamu, on 30 July at 21:00.
On 29 July from 19:00 to 21:00 at 91mQ in Berlin, I will be participating in the first panel talk, organized in part of s.low projekt. The theme of the panel talk is “The Tortoise and the Hare: Time and the Creative Process” and is joined by artists from diverse fields, such as Gail Ritchi, Carolina Loyalo-García, Teresa Foley, Jaana Kokko, Kristina Frei, Suk-Jun Kim, and Elaine Kelly. The panel discussion is moderated by Sunshine Wong.

Leverhulme visiting fellowship at the University of Aberdeen

Sun, 23 May 2010 11:39:22 +0100

Well, the life in Berlin was fantastic. But now my body itches to get moving again, and I have to heed the sign.

I will be spending another year from June in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a Leverhulme visiting research fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Pete Stollery (an excellent EA composer who teaches there) graciously invited me to work there.

I have always been fascinated by the scenery and the landscape of Scotland (partly due to my imagination ever since watching Braveheart), and people tell me my fascination is not that far from what I will get. But I also get various warnings from them about its weather. We will see.

My research in Aberdeen is an extension of one of my previous thesis topics: Place. There are various and interesting leads that I had discovered, but could not dig out further, while I was working on my thesis, and I hope that my residency in Aberdeen will give me the time and resources to delve into them.

About the sign that I talked about in the beginning: one of my compositions during my DAAD residency was On the Way to Fwarrheu. When I was working on the piece, neither did I know the existence of the Faroe Islands, which is located about halfway between Scotland and Iceland. Nor did I realize that I would spend a year in Aberdeen. What will be the next? The Iceland, perhaps?
No: my cats will kill me if that happens!

Opening of “A travel log: from fwarrheu to hejning”

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 19:12:31 +0000

Last Friday on Dec. 4, I had the opening of my first solo exhibition, A Travel Log: From Fwarrheu to Hejning, at the daadgalerie in Berlin. The show included four sound installations, which are based on the same theme of my recent compositions: the imaginary place called Hasla. The show will run until Jan. 16, 2010.
Below are some pictures and short notes of each installation. (all the pictures are taken by Kai Bienert unless stated otherwise.)

“I have been to this land called Hasla.
I remember when I entered it, a sign read:

Welcome to Hasla!
A faraway land in which everything appears to be as strange as familiar; a place to which you have never traveled, yet one that resembles eerily every town you have visited before; a town at which as soon as you arrive, you realize that you have already left.

Well, at least, that is how I remember. But how can I tell others of this land, which does not exist?”

Mnemon
one-channel video and two-channel audio installation
with a wooden board (2009)
(photographed by Sung-Eun Kim)

On the TV screen, a teller (or the traveler himself) continues to name the cities in Hasla, and a wooden board on the desk shows the trace of the traveler who struggled not to forget those names by writing them on it again and again. We can no longer know what these cities are called, and are only left with the sounds of the scribbling on the plate.

Memory Tub
(in collaboration with Sung-Eun Kim)
Five-channel audio installation with a small tub (2009)

"I don't remember any of it."

"You were there, though, weren't you?"

"Yes, but things are getting blurred, you know. it's no wonder, really. I don't remember much of what happened yesterday anyway."

"But you said you were there. Is that all you now remember? That you once existed in that place?"

"That is the thing. I don't remember it, but somehow, my body knows it—that I was there. I can feel it, you know. It really is a strange feeling. It's kind of a deja vu—you don't remember having been there, having seen or experienced it, but somehow, you just know that it is part of your past. But it is strange because, though it is part of your past, it is not part of you. I know that this is not helping me much to remember it as I think you said so the other day, but I can't help it just as I can't help but to know my having being there even though I don't remember it. For they are the same. They feel same to me: they both happen immediately, so much so that I am appalled every time it does. Then comes the sense of coldness as if somebody put a knife on my tongue."

Souvenirs for Your Itineraries
60-channel sound installation with piezo discs (2009)

These are the sounds that the traveler has collected while exploring deep into Hasla. They are archaic, showing the vestige of either some dialects spoken only in certain parts of the region or the sounds you may experience while crossing there. Listen closely and you will hear stories of how places in Halsa came into being. Grab one or two and bring them close to your ears! They are for your itineraries to Hasla.

Sound Screen: Hejning
(in Collaboration with Sung-Eun Kim)
12-channel sound installation (2009)

Sit back and enjoy this 50-minute soundscape piece, which will take you to Hejning, a city in Hasla. While this is not a documentary, it might as well be viewed in that way. Draw whatever comes to you on these screens where there is nothing to see. Sounds will guide you to Hejning.

A quite good number of people showed up at the opening although it was a bit too loud to talk at the gallery. I will soon upload more pictures, video and sound files for the installations soon.

-(update) I have created a new menu called “Installations”.

In preparation of my first solo exhibition

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:27:57 +0000

I am currently working furiously on my first solo exhibition. For this, I am making four sound installations—a foolish endeavor, if you ask me now, for one sound installation is already too venturesome!
Seriously, though, I am enjoying this process very much. I have always envied visual artists who—not all, though—can touch their materials at hand. Being an electroacoustic composer who exerts all his care to ‘sculpt’ his sounds, I have often felt that the relationship I have with sounds is paradoxical, though it makes everything interesting for its own sake.
But the desire to get in touch with the materials, to make something visible, touchable, and presentable has always been in my thought while I am composing.
That was mainly the reason, I think, why I decided to do this show. Though I have done some sound installations, in collaboration with my wife, I am at best a learner of this practice. And how much did I learn from this process!

While working on these installations, I become keenly aware of my nature more than I do while composing. The two processes are similar in some senses, but millions apart in their finer details—which make everything different and which I think I like very much. I get my hands dirty, smell the burning solder, make something out of materials that were not meant to be used that way, and experience what I have created the way I have (and have not!!) imagined!

This is a (very) short text that I have written for the show.

A Travel Log: From Fwarrheu to Hejning

"I have been to this land called Hasla. At least, that is how I remember. But how can I tell others of this land, which does not exist?"
A Travel Log: From Fwarrheu to Hejning is a collection of sound installations that are part of Welcome to Hasla, a project that Kim has worked since he arrived in Berlin and consists of several electroacoustic compositions and sound installations. Much like the musical compositions, A Travel Log: From Fwarrheu to Hejning, which consists of four sound installations—Sound Screen, Mnemon, Memory Tub, and Souvenirs for Your Itineraries—invites the viewers and listeners to a path to Hasla.

In tune, out of tune: Remark by Folkmar Hein

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:57:02 +0000

On the opening day of In Tune, Out of Tune, a public sound installation as part of Tonspur in Berlin, Germany, Folkmar Hein, former director of TU Studio in Berlin and a long-time composer and passionate advocate of electroacoustic music (about him, please read this interview conducted in 1999 and published on CEC’s eContact) , gave a few words on the installation.
It was originally written and read in German so I did not know exactly what he was saying, only hoping that it was good.
Now I have his writing translated in English, which conveys the significance of the installation more than anything else. I sincerely express my gratitude to the thought and passion given by Folkmar to the installation. Below is his text in English.

A few days ago, there was an article published by daad magazine about the installation and some general information about me. It is in German, though.

Remarks by Folkmar Hein at the opening of Tonspur 31
Soundworks at Schloßplatz zu Berlin, Oct. 11, 2009

Suk Jun Kim : in tune, out of tune

I’ve been asked to make some comments about Suk Jun Kim’s work in tune, out of tune. Kim currently lives here in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program, so I’ve already had the pleasure of getting to know him. From this perspective, I would like to formulate a few thoughts, which I will approach through the analysis of a word.
Because if you go to the webpage of this tonspur project, the first thing you’ll notice is the mysterious word “hum”. In Grimm’s dictionary, we read (summarizing): "making a low, muted" or also "muffled quavering sound" – which doesn’t necessarily get us anywhere … but let’s take a look at the five varieties of this mysterious word “hum” that Grimm differentiates:
1." humming" once meant "booming", "pealing" – especially in connection with bells. We Berliners immediately think of the Parochial Church, whose glockenspiel was once called a Singuhr, a singing clock. Or the word "hum" was linked with "constant industrial noises", as in Hauptmann’s Thiel the Crossing Keeper: ".. humming chords sounded .. from the telegraph poles", which indicates that humming doesn’t consist of a single sound or abrupt bursts of sound but of something sustained. And here we recognize the first link to the genre of sound installations that, like this work by Kim, go on making sound for several weeks – or in this case “go on humming”.
2.We most often associate a description of hearing “humming” with the sound of insect wings – which takes us close to the composer’s idea. Maybe someone hummed the old children’s song to Kim – “summ, summ, summ, Bienchen summ herum, buzz buzz buzz little bee, buzz around” –? Do we hear that here?
3.But actual "humming", though, signifies something having to do with the human voice, a variant of singing – not “full-throated singing” but absorption in a dialogue or communion with oneself or someone very close to us. We say things like: “humming softly to oneself”, “humming the old tunes”, “humming someone to sleep”. And the interesting thing is: this familiar humming isn’t perfect – it tends to be out of tune!  So we immediately grasp the context of the title in tune, out of tune: the humming we hear coming from the benches sometimes sounds pretty off-key, but we spontaneously chime in with what we hear, we’re “in tune”!!! By the way, this is where my initial use of the adjective “mysterious” fits in. There is something mysterious about acoustic intimacy, the murmuring of low voices together (or perhaps just to oneself), where not only words play a role but also the interpersonal relationship, the close communication of direct whisper-contact – that is, being “in tune”.
4.The term “hum” also indicates the hodgepodge of sounds made by an anonymous crowd of people, which conveys a rather muffled, incoherent impression; humming becomes a symbol for a consistent buzz of activity (“the streets hum with people ..", not to be confused with the insistent murmur of the people of Leipzig: “wir sind das Volk, we are the people”). It happens only with multitudes, and more from afar; it comes across like the sound of big cities with distant trains and highways, an acoustic horizon we are all familiar with.
5.“Humming” can also signify the projection of an acoustic external image into oneself, into one’s own head (“humming in my brain”), generating a possibly perplexing buzzing in one’s ears or a “dazed state”, whizzing through the brain in a mysterious blur.  Maybe the humming of popular songs here at the site where the Berlin palace, and then the Palace of the Republic, once stood should be considered somewhat “perplexing”?

Kim would prefer to have humming associated chiefly with childhood memories, with “humming to someone”. This brings up a link that seems threatened in the media age, because the humming that comes from an mp3 player is nothing like the humming of a mother, who does so spontaneously, tenderly, somewhat unprofessionally. The mp3 song has been professionally produced (I would hope) for the market and thus lacks all the so-called “mistakes” – the typically “bad intonation” of humming, the right “breathing” – everything, in fact, that is so plainly and simply voiced by each person who hums. And that’s why this idiosyncratic humming does not get recorded and is certainly not being uploaded straight to the Internet! The simple act of humming is a non-public declaration of belief in the non-commercial. It is, as it were, the opposite of our music industry, the opposite of Muzak and all its derivatives, including the constant streams coming through millions of headphones.
But how does something I’ve just thoroughly castigated get from there to here, how does it come to be electroacoustic music?
Well, that’s precisely the secret, even somewhat ambiguous, nature of “art”! We all will perceive it on our own and understand and accept it in our own way (or not). We will hear the somehow familiar humming of distant songs, the underlying cheerfulness connected with childhood memories, overlaid by the acoustic horizon of the humming metropolis, and for a brief moment we will pause, find ourselves in an inexplicable world of intimacy, and perhaps hum along now and then, and keep on humming!
Kim, the composer, thought a great deal about how to resolve the apparent dilemma between the “in tune” called for by art music and the “out of tune” heard in this sound installation.
He starts with a spoken situation where we find ourselves in a kind of radio play, and we are informed “before the curtain goes up” that the recordings will now begin. The sounds of bells (sic!: “humming” is connected with bells pealing!!) lead into the approximately 13-minute-long second section; from then on, bells separate the musical events. We hear rather slow melodies and familiar children’s songs, and we also hear (perhaps surprisingly) pop songs, humorous songs and songs from other cultures, layered on top of each other polyphonically (as described in point 4 above, where there’s a bit of a hodgepodge). in tune, out of tune is composed. The brief last section of the piece, naturally introduced by the familiar tinkling bells, brings us back to solitary voices humming beautiful, soft and familiar melodies – a kind of parting hum or “one last tune”. And at the end, after about 17:30 minutes, someone asks...
Hope you’ll have a contemplative pleasure, humming along!!

Ai-Maako festival in Chile and a memorable trekking

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 04:40:28 +0100

I am in Chile, attending 2009 Ai-Maako festival, here in Santiago. I presented What the Bird Saw, On the Way to Fwarrheu, and Welcome to Hasla, as well as Out of Breath by Paul Koonce and Cyrosphere by Yutaka Makino.
The concert was well received and I had a good time.
I also gave a presentation on “Acousmatic Reasoning and Imagination in Electroacoustic Music Listening” where I had some enthusiastic audience.

Since I had a few days before leaving for Berlin, I (and my wife) visited a place called “El Cajon del Maipo” for some trekking fun. It is about 2 hours from Santiago, surrounded by the Andes Mountains. The weather up there was harsh, with lots of snow still on the ground, strong winds and sudden drops of temperature. But we just loved the place so much; it was as if we were a non-place—certainly, it was a non-place because we did not have any memory (previous experience) of such a place. It was a place foreign and strange, yet to be experienced, which made the place so much interesting and exciting for both of us.

We wanted to walk all the way up to the place very close to the glaciers, but the snow was too much and we were not prepared for that.
Don’t know whether and when we can return to Chile, but it will be our plan to go back to that place to continue our walk in the future.

“In tune, out of tune” a public sound installation

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:39:13 +0100

During my residency in Bourges, France, I have completed a sound installation, “In Tune, Out of Tune”, commissioned by Tonspur and DAAD. For the last month, I have been busy meeting people and collecting their ‘hums’ in Berlin. Despite the huge material that was available to me, completing the piece took only a week.

In fact, it was my intention to finish it as swiftly as possible. From the beginning, I did not want to change these hums much because I wanted listeners to recognize the songs. It was a fun and engaging project, involving a different compositional process.

Now I am very looking forward to hearing the piece actually in the Schlossplatz in Mitte, Berlin. The opening is on Oct. 11, 11:30 AM. The piece will be played every hour from 8 AM to 10 PM from Oct. 11, 2009 to Jan. 31, 2010.

The following is a short program note that I submitted for Tonspur’s website (which will soon be updated):

In Tune, Out of Tune

"Do you have a song that reminds you of your childhood? Would you hum it for me?"

Now that the Palace of the Republic is gone, we have this green place. What is this strange place? To me, this place is unreal; as if it were stripped of its context. At least, this place is comforting, like any open, green grass would be. Lying in the middle of the grass, suddenly I can imagine hearing people humming. Perfect. Of course, people would hum in this kind of a place. But what would they hum?

So I asked some fifty people who have lived in Berlin, long enough to witness the heated debates about, and the consequent demolition of the Palace of the Republic. And, they hum like this.

The first name of the participants (I could not get the name of some other participants): Gabriel, Heidemarie, Horst, Lena, Isabel, Martin, Penko, Ulrika, Sebastian, Sabine, Gwydion, Sophie, Michael, Folkmar, Gabi, Nick, Fred, Shai, Dave, Maebh, Anders, Rosemarie, Stephanie, Stefan, Daisuke, Doris, Michael, Valerie, Frank, Nora, Christian, Heinz, Andrea, Elke, Katharina, Lee, Ada, Luise, Jutta, Florian, Kyoungjin, Wonjun, Soobin, Joonsik, Yesol, Soyun, Eunkyoung, Chikook, Alexander, Verity...

Fünf Plus eins - a series of concerts in Berlin

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:23:06 +0100

Two of my new pieces in 2009, On the Way to Fwarrheu (stereo) and Talk to Us! (five-channel), were played on the first-day concert from “FÜNF PLUS EINS” at the Kleine Wasserspeicher in Berlin on the 17th of September, 2009.
The venue was an old water reservoir and had very long reverberation time, and they put some 24 speakers around the venue. It was an interesting experience to present the piece. I liked the sound of the stereo piece (On the Way to Fwarrheu) there, but not that of the five-channel piece. It was all over the place and at the same time, none of the place!
Some people seemed to quite like both pieces, but my experience of the pieces was a very unnerving one.

I could have composed a piece just for that space, but decided not to do that. The concert also programmed a piece by Edwin van der Heide, who was guest professor at the Technical University in Berlin and currently teaches in the Netherlands. His piece sounded very good in that space. He mainly used synthesized sine waves and clicks. My wife said to me after the concert that it was as if she had been put into a brain massage.

I thought about this for a while. Whenever I listened to this kind of pieces, I always liked the experience. I wondered-: but then why don't I make a piece like that? Perhaps I could try one. It will be interesting. But It seemed that a piece like this would always need a place with peculiar spatial qualities. In other words, it should be a site-specific piece. More thoughts will follow on this one...

ICMC 2009 in montreal, Canada

Sun, 2 Aug 2009 23:21:44 +0100

Although I had lived in Canada for over three years, I never had a chance to visit Montreal about which I have hears so many good things.
This year, I finally decided to visit Montreal, and ICMC 2009 is a good excuse for my travel.

During the conference, I will be presenting my pice Corresponding and give a short presentation on my paper, “Imaginal Listening and Phenomena of Sound-Images in Electroacoustic Music”.
But I am excited more about meeting friends and enjoying the city.

Upcoming events

Sun, 2 Aug 2009 22:50:21 +0100

First of all, a few of my compositions were performed in Germany and France: Welcome to Hasla in Berlin on June 4 and Welcome to Hasla and Kotmun (A Gate of Flowers) in Nuit Bleue 2009 on July 11.

I am currently working on two installations and one composition. The first installation, tentatively titled Pre/Postscript, is a 8-channel audio and 4-channel video piece, which is to be showcased as part of a DAAD-organized concert “Ein und Fünf” at Kleine Wassserspeicher, Singuhr-hoergalerie in Berlin on Sep. 17. Also to be played at this concert are On the Way to Fwarrheu and a new piece that I am working on, which is tentatively titled Talk to Us.
The other installation, commissioned by Tonspur and DAAD, is to be located at the Schlossplatz in the Mitte, Berlin. Titled In Tune, Out of Tune, this 8-channel outdoor sound installation is to be played from Oct. 11, 2009 to Jan. 31, 2010 at this historically significant place in Berlin.

On the way to fwarrheu premiered at synthese 2009

Tue, 9 Jun 2009 12:57:29 +0100

On the Way to Fwarrheu, the second piece of the “Welcome to Hasla” series, was premiered at SYNTHESE 2009 on June 6 at Theatre Jacque Cœeur in Bourges, France. Currently in two channel, the piece will eventually be mixed to a 5.1 channel piece.

EM-Hören at Tu-berlin studio: may 14, 6pm, berlin, germany

Tue, 5 May 2009 21:16:54 +0100

I will give a talk/listening presentation for EM-Hören Meetting at TU-Berlin Studio on May 14, 6PM. The following is a brief description of the presentation:

EM-Hören: "Imagining Memories"

In this listening presentation, I would like to guide listeners to my personal journey to electroacoustic music: how I got into electroacoustic composition and what I personally value in this practice--at least for now. In this presentation, I will play works by Denis Smalley and Paul Koonce, whose compositions have been influential to me, as well as a few compositions of mine, through which I hope to discuss issues of imagining and remembering and how they may be related to electroacoustic music making and listening.

Playlist:
• Pentes (1974) - Denis Smalley
• Out of Breath (2000) - Paul Koonce
• Midong (1999) - Suk-Jun Kim
• Samul: Jing (2003) - Suk-Jun Kim
• What the Bird Saw (2004) - Suk-Jun Kim
• Kotmun (A Gate of Flowers) (2005) - Suk-Jun Kim

Birth of KEMCA (Korean Electroacoustic Music Composers Abroad

Mon, 4 May 2009 21:03:03 +0100

On April 28, 2009, a small number of Korean composers who are working with electroacoustic medium got together and created KEMCA (Korean Electroacoustic Music Composers Abroad). It is a small google-group-based organization, whose main goals are:
•to find and listen to works of Korean EA music composers;
•to get information on how/where to study EA music; and
•to meet and contact Korean EA musicians living abroad.

Although it is mainly for Korean EA composers, anyone who is interested in EA music can join the group. If you are interested in finding more about what KEMCA does, please visit KEMCA.

Happenings in May

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:02:04 +0100

After a couple of long trips, I now have time to (really) settling in Berlin and composing!. Although I will spend most of time in May composing, reading, and writing, I have a couple of concerts/talks scheduled.
First, on May 14, I will give a talk/presentation of my music and a few of others for EM-Hören at TU-Berlin Studio.
And I will fly in the next week to London where my piece, “Welcome to Hasla,” will be played at City University London on May 19.

Oh, last week (April 20 -21) I attended a two-day hardware hacking workshop with Nicolas Collins. After the workshop, he played a small piece for the late Michel Waisvisz, which was nice and appropriate.

Master class “co-incidence” in bourges, france

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:33:09 +0000

At the 39th International Festival of Electronic Music and Creation, which will take place in Bourges, France, from May 29 to June 8, I will give a public presentation/master class on the issue of “Listeners and Imagination: EA Listening and Acousmatic Reasoning” and play some of my music.
For more information, visit IMEB.

Young Korean Composers’ Concert in Bourges, France

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 20:23:12 +0000

At the 39th International Festival of Electronic Music and Creation, which will take place in Bourges, France, from May 29 to June 8, I will be curating a concert of young Korean composers, who are active in the USA and Europe.
The concert will play compositions by Joo Won Park, Tae Hong Park, Seunghye Kim, Kyong Mee Choi, Dohi Moon, Young Shin Choi, Ji Youn Kang, and Suk-Jun Kim.
For more information, visit IMEB.

Artist-in-berlin residency begins!

Mon, 2 Mar 2009 20:36:04 +0000

After a long preparation, I have arrived in Berlin to start my residency in Berlin for one year. The city, people, language—in fact, almost everything is unfamiliar to me, which is great because the main project that I will be working on here in Berlin is a DVD-Audio project that includes a series of electroacoustic pieces that are tightly intertwined by the theme of Places and Imaginations.
I have carefully devised a plan which I am very excited about. While designing the overall scheme of the project, I felt as if I were not a composer, but a writer.
Quite frankly, I get much more inspirations from books and stories of writers (Milan Kundera, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, and Edward S. Casey, etc.) than music. It is, in a sense, understandable; at this point of the compositional process, I am gathering materials, both technical and aesthetic. Composing pieces and getting closer to details are another matter.

A series of lectures and presentation & Performances

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 01:07:59 +0000

I will be giving a series of lectures and/or presentations on my compositions to the following schools:
-Manchester College, North Manchester, IN (Oct. 27-28, 2008)
-Community College of Philadelphia, PA (Nov. 14, 2008)
-Stetson University, FL (Jan. 21-23, 2009)
-Brevard Community College, FL (Jan. 27, 2009)

On another note, Welcome to Hasla was or will be played in the following events:
-21st Days of new Music in Weimar, Germany (Oct. 24, 2008)
-Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey 2008 (LASO), Padadena, LA (Nov. 21-22, 2008)
-Festival Ultraschall at RBB Kulturradio, Berlin, Germany (Jan. 25, 2009)
-Sonic Spatial Perspectives, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK (Feb. 7, 2009)
-City University London Concert Series, London, UK (May. 19, 2009)

Welcome to hasla wins the first prize

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:10:17 +0100

Welcome to Hasla, a 5-channel electroacoustic composition, won the first prize at the 5th Metamorphoses Composition Competition in Belgium. This year, this biannual composition competition received the largest number of works (167 compositions); composers were allowed to send only one work for the competition.
You can listen to a stereo reduction of the piece from here.

Residency at Macdowell colony

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 23:55:15 +0100

I will spend three weeks at the MacDowell Colony as an artist resident this December.
The MacDowell Colony is one of the most well-known, oldest artist residencies in the USA, and each year, they invite composers, writers, visual artists, filmmakers to their colony, offering ideal working conditions for them and the opportunity to exchange ideas with others.