Konrad
Korabiewski

Konrad Korabiewski is a wanderer – he roams through the countries of Europe and the musical and artistic genres of their cultures. The artist had already performed in his native land of Poland in audiovisual contexts, mixing experimental electronic sounds with atmospheric and rhythmic passages and creating field recordings and live broadcasts in real time.

In addition to his live performances with computer-generated soundscapes, in 2002, together with Maciej Walczak, Korabiewski created an audiovisual variation on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Falstaff. During a live broadcast of the opera, the two artists, using electronics, created a simultaneous experimental audiovisual version of the opera. The sounds and the images modulated each other, were distorted, mixed and filtered, at moments allowing the broadcast to shimmer through. During his time in Denmark, Korabiewski went on to develop a sensitive feel for experimental multimedia projects, concerts and installations. In collaboration with artists and instrumentalists, he created works with live electronics whose dense accumulations of sounds reference the sound of urban environments; hammering rhythms suddenly and surprisingly dissolve into a subtle sound oscillating between fragile lucidity and harmonic depths.
Korabiewski’s interdisciplinary interests are especially evident in his collaborations with the Danish artist Litten. The two created a multimedia artists’ book that generates somber but excitingly lively atmospheres that invite exploration with the eyes, ears and sense of touch. The sound of the book is characterized by meditative, slowly evolving transitions that attract the listener’s attention despite the minimalist sound scenario and, together with Litten’s illustrations, create a completely unique perceptual situation.
Korabiewski seeks out aesthetic environments. While in Poland and Denmark his focus was on urban scenes. Since founding the Skàlar Center for Sound Art and Experimental Music in eastern Iceland he has become involved with the depths of the (sound)-landscape. In the visual and acoustic expanse of Iceland, he is concerned primarily with the interpenetration and distortion of sounds, the complexity of sonic atmospheres/soundscapes and how such structures are perceived. The artists uses field recordings that he reworks or mixes with electronic sounds to create »cinegraphic soundscapes« for particular visual contexts, which invite us to play with reality and our perception of reality. In the attempt to capture the »essence« of an object or a situation, Korabiewski creates, in interaction with various media, what he calls an »abstracted version of reality«.

Text: Fabian Czolbe, 2014