Defragmentation – Curating Contemporary Music

“Defragmentation – Curating Contemporary Music” is a research project that addresses much-neglected questions related to the themes of “Gender & Diversity”, “Decolonization”, “Technology” and “Curation” in new music. Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, the project is developed jointly by MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues, Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Donaueschinger Musiktage, and in cooperation with Ultima Festival Oslo. The goal of this project is to work towards rendering visible structural and habitual insufficiencies as well as developing better practices and more adequate discourses relating to these interconnected themes. In collaboration with artists, scholars and curators from different fields, each of the festivals aims at tackling these topical questions in their own way, aspiring to a multifaceted understanding of their complexity and interrelatedness.

In the course of the project, research and artistic production interact via the development of new projects based on the transfer of knowledge both theoretical and artistic. “Defragmentation – Curating Contemporary Music” examines the social relevance of contemporary music, reflecting its genealogy as well as its intersections with societal fault-lines of today. On the basis of a (self-)critical yet generative approach, it thus intends to offer forward-looking impulses for a new orientation in curating new music.

With Heloisa Amaral, Camille C. Baker, Georgina Born, Björn Gottstein, Lars Petter Hagen, George E. Lewis, Tim Perkis, Berno Odo Polzer, Thomas Schäfer, Hortensia Völckers