PIERCE WARNECKE is a multidisciplinary digital artist at the intersection of experimental music, digital arts and video art.
He has presented his work in the form of performances, concerts and installations at Rewire, Mutek, ZKM, ManiFeste (IRCAM), CTM, Elektra, KW Institut, La Biennale Nemo, Sonic Acts, Martin Gropius Bau, MAC Montreal, Gray Area SF, Scopitone, LEV Festival, SXSW, FILE, etc. He has co-curated emittermicro label and festival with Kris Limbach and Seiji Morimoto in Berlin since 2011, in addition to co-curating Le Signal Festival in France with Louis Laurain since 2020.
Between 2017 and 2019 he composed several audiovisual works for the Institute for Sound and Music's Hexadome project in Berlin, San Francisco, Montreal and more. Pierce collaborates often and has worked with Frank Bretschneider, Matthew Biederman, Myriam Bleau, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Louis Laurain, Rodolphe Loubatière, Clémént Edouard and more.
His music has been published on raster (DE), Room40 (AU) and Contour Editions (US). He is represented by Disk Agency in Berlin.
"My work stems from an interest in the effects of time on matter: modification, deterioration and disappearance. Whether the focus is on digital forms or rough materials, large scales of time or microscopic details, the goal of these pieces is to re-adapt existing sonic, visual or physical objects and materials into parallel contexts where their signified meanings, symbols and cultural connections have become residual ghosts; abstractions with loose connections to reality, like distant memories. The possibility of altering the 'real' (or one's perception of it) through the intensity of physical experience lies at the core of how I compose, by working with contrasting scales of activity (from static to frenetic) and focusing on the limits of human perception in regards to duration, frequency and amplitude of both visual and sonic material. I am interested in challenging what we can hear and what we can see in order to develop a personal language combining sound, light, movement, color, shape, texture and structure."
FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER is a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin. His work is known for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures and its minimal, flowing approach. Bretschneider’s subtle and detailed music is echoed by his visuals: perfect translated realizations of the qualities found in music within visual phenomena.
Bretschneider grew up in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz since 1990), where his aesthetic developed listening to pirate radio stations and smuggling Beastie Boys cassettes in the former GDR. In 1984, after studying fine arts and inspired by science fiction radio plays and films, he began experimenting with tape machines, synthesizers, and modified guitars, exploring the possibilities of electronic music, as well as the possibilities of exchanging visual art and music through various means such as film, video, and computer graphics.
In 1986, after establishing his cassette label klangFarBe, Bretschneider founded AG Geige, a successful and influential East German underground band. Though limited to the East before the wall came down, they were invited to perform across Germany and internationally after 1989 and released three albums before splitting in 1993. In 1995, Bretschneider and fellow AG Geige member Olaf Bender founded the Rastermusic record label which eventually merged with Carsten Nicolai’s noton to form raster-noton (now raster media) in 1999. Since then Bretschneider has released more than 20 albums on various labels including Mille Plateaux, Faitiche, 12k and Line, and is performing at music/media festivals worldwide.
Visit here to learn more about Frank Bretschneider's work.
