The Creative Europe-supported SHAPE+ platform for innovative music and audiovisual art has added four additional acts to its artist list. They enter the project via collaborative residencies, implemented by musikprotokoll in Austria and SONICA festival in Slovenia.

The selection process

Unlike the artists of SHAPE+ that are announced at the beginning of each working year as a result of collective voting, additional artists are selected by individual festivals of SHAPE+ initially for the purpose of taking part in collaborative residencies. They will be added to the SHAPE+ roster via bi-monthly announcements as more and more SHAPE+-related events and festivals are confirmed.
New acts
Ulla Rauter and Hui Ye have been selected by Austria’s musikprotokoll festival to participate in sonic bricolage artist Yara Mekawei’s residency later in the year. Jaka Berger and Branimir Štivić, selected by Slovenia’s SONICA festival, will collaborate with Tony Elieh, veteran of the Lebanese experimental music scene. Keep an eye on the “Events” section of the SHAPE+ website to catch these artists presenting new works.

The platform

SHAPE+ is a new European platform for innovative music and audiovisual art co-financed by the Creative Europe programme. Running for the next three years, SHAPE+ will foster exceptional emerging talent, connecting them to local communities and audiences through collaborative residencies with multiple artistic outcomes, commissioned artworks, as well as one-off presentations and performances. Combining an open call and a curatorial selection, the platform members will select a roster of artists to support each year.

SHAPE+ initially consists of 13 partners in 13 countries with plans for further expansion, while adopting an interdisciplinary approach and committing to social and environmental awareness.
SHAPE+ builds upon the previous SHAPE platform, which from 2015 to 2022 supported 336 emerging European artists and presented their work at festivals, events and venues in numerous countries across Europe and beyond.

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Read our SHAPE publication

This book celebrates the second phase of SHAPE (Sound, Heterogeneous Art and Performance in Europe), between 2018 and 2022. The platform supports mainly emerging and at times less explored innovative music and audiovisual art from various parts of Europe. SHAPE is run by 16 festivals and organisations that worked with 192 artistic projects during this period. First and foremost, this publication is a collection of selected interviews with some of these artists.

The founders of SHAPE hope that these conversations will give to the reader an insight into the diverse world of adventurous European sound and interdisciplinary artists who, with some exceptions, have escaped broader international attention. When speaking to the artists, we got to hear what motivates and inspires them, what backgrounds they are from, what pleases or worries them about their current situation (both creatively and socially), and where they hope to arrive. Their answers were just as diverse as their work, and there are many colourful opinions – sometimes even contradictory ones – which allow the reader to conjure a hypothetical future of the fields of music and art.

Beyond that, this book is a catalogue of names in music and audiovisual art that the reader might want to follow in the future. By nominating them for the SHAPE project, curators from 16 festivals wanted to draw attention to the idiosyncratic and innovative work they have done so far, and to suggest that these artists represent ideas, methods, and trends that will shape the nearest future of both aforementioned fields.

HAPPY READING!

SHAPE+ builds upon the previous SHAPE platform, which from 2015 to 2022 supported 336 emerging European artists and presented their work at festivals, events, and venues in numerous countries across Europe and beyond. We’d like to thank all the artists, partners, supporters, and friends who participated.

Open call

The artists chosen for SHAPE+ must be willing to choose greener forms of travel when such choice is possible, and are expected to participate either in residencies that include artistic collaboration or one-off performances and presentations as well as publicity activities, educational events and artist meet-ups. 

Artists can see more detailed eligibility criteria and apply by filling in this form.

Deadline: April 30, 2022.

On March 16 and 23, SHAPE platform for innovative music and audiovisual art will collaborate with the Bristol-based magazine and online media Crack on a string of online premieres of performances, video works, compositions and mixes, all created specifically for this two-part online event aimed at global audience. The SHAPE takeover of Crack magazine will happen in two parts: on March 16, all the audio premieres of this joint activity will be published on crackaud.io, whereas March 23 will see new video works by SHAPE artists published on Crack’s website.

The line-up of this collaboration will consist of 16 European acts – each SHAPE member organisation will present one artist that they initially nominated to the platform. For the occasion, Terraforma presented Shapednoise.

The Creative Europe-supported SHAPE platform for innovative music and audiovisual art is announcing its 2021 list of artists. The artist selection for the platform’s seventh year traditionally places a number of audiovisual projects and sound artists alongside musical acts that range from club music and forward-thinking media art to free improvisation and spatial music.
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From November 11 until November 25, SHAPE platform for innovative music and audiovisual art will collaborate with the US-based online music magazine XLR8R on a string of exclusive live streams and mixes from a selection of 2020 SHAPE artists. Terraforma presents a performance by Piezo recorded in the Threes Studio at Assab One.

For the first time in Milan, an immersive showcase of the Platform for Innovative Music and Audiovisual Art from Europe. Being Terraforma the latest member to take part in SHAPE platform, the event aims to provide insights about the intents and modus operandi of SHAPE in order to fully present its work. The showcase takes place in the fascinating venue of ASSAB ONE, the new headquarters of Terraforma.

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SHAPE platform for innovative music and audiovisual art, supported by the “Creative Europe” programme of the European Union announces a new open call for artist submissions for the 2021 SHAPE artist roster.

Musicians are asked to provide an up to 10 minute long streamable video or audio excerpt of their live performance, while audiovisual artists are asked to provide streamable video documentation (or photos) of their work (online links, no attachments). Materials that are not sent in accordance to these requirements, will not be considered.

As the creation of the annual SHAPE artist roster is rather complex and demands consensus from 16 different organizations, we will not be able to get back to artists or musicians with detailed evaluations of the submitted materials. However, they will be contacted in the case if they’re chosen for the SHAPE roster of 2021.

Artists can apply by filling in this form.

Deadline: July 31, 2020.

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Marta De Pascalis is an Italian musician and sound designer living in Berlin. Her solo works employ analog synthesis and tape loops, incorporating free playing into steady, repetitive patterns. She has produced two albums of minimal synth excursions: the self- released Quitratue (2014) and Anzar (The Tapeworm, 2016) and Her Core in spring 2018 on The Wormhole. Marta creates densely layered collages of glowing melodic shards and growling bass lines, hypnotic synth figures that warp and whirl around each other before dissolving into entropic oblivion. For her compositions, she uses improvisation on a tape-loop system, in which patterns of repetition create a sense of dense, dynamic and cathartic distance.

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Tadleeh is the nascent project of Indian-born, Milan-based musician Hazina Francia. Her club-heavy, brooding debut EP, Ego Will Collapse, was released in summer 2019 on Berlin’s Yegorka label. Hear her Red Light Radio live set below!

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The Creative Europe-supported SHAPE platform for innovative music and audiovisual art is announcing its 2020 list of artists. The artist selection for the platform’s 6th year traditionally places a number of audiovisual projects and sound artists alongside musical acts that range from club music and forward-thinking media art to free improvisation and spatial music. SHAPE is also happy to welcome a new member – Italy’s Terraforma, and the festival has already contributed to this newly announced list of SHAPE acts.

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After concluding a fruitful and curatorially enriching collaboration with the Paris-based Biennale Némo, SHAPE platform welcomes a new member festival – Italy’s Terraforma.

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