Axel Kolb


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The starting point of my artistic practice are themes that entangle distorted perception and spatiality, which I address and formulate in my acousmatic and electroacoustic pieces and performances. I work with fictional scenarios in which phantasmagorical objects appear as protagonists of cognitive and perceptual distortions. In these works of sonic fiction the de- and re-signification and contextualisation mediate the dissociating protagonists of referential incoherence. In my concerts I project these narratives into the respective venues and use the space as an instrument. By interacting with the particular acoustic properties of the spaces, these become an integral part of my music and, together with the imaginary narratives, form an altered spatial perception. 
In my improvised solo trombone performances, I make use of extended playing techniques and live-electronics in order to analogously point to anthropogenic sonic warning signals and alarms.  
In addition I curate and organise the concert series Spectres.  

A hot-air balloon collides with a spire in a distorted space; a ship is trapped in polar ice and drifts through exhausted identifications; the creaking of wooden planks, the swinging of a lamp. The emphasis shifts from one surface to another. 

These arrangements are suspended, insisting on continuity without resolution. Listening is part of the compositional process: the listener is not just a receiver, but part of the spatial configuration. Sound, space and perception are vectors that make up the compositional process.  They delineate the topology of form over time – reconfigurations that continually alter its appearance and destabilise coherence. 

A formative process in which the void in the chain of meaning is not resting. A fragmented remnant of form. Neither the whole nor the fragment is operational. Fragmentation is a state of continuous non-fulfilment and the listener resonates and moves within it. 

These cartographic constructions are unresolved spatial relations. Relations are not organised, but are the action of compositional practice undermined by its structures. Figures drift between physical resonance and conceptual opacity in fictional projections. 

In the absence of a conclusion, the compositional practice withdraws and is registered as folding, misaligning, and disarticulating rather than expressing. 

Sound as an unattainable experience, where presence, relation and legibility do not coincide and fragmentation is not the result. The void within the chain of meaning configures itself as an interruption, where linearity frays and connection is opaque and buried beneath.