Totem Series Residency Concert

Gudinni Cortina & Thomas Grill – „Almost solo“ performances

Since June 2024, my evolving installation Totem has had a home at Setzkasten. To celebrate, we’re launching a mini-series exploring the relationship between sound, machines, and their energy. Expect solos—or perhaps an orchestra of machines, cables, radios, and tapes. Maybe even some sonic spirits will join in!

Gudinni Cortina I am a Media Artist based in Mexico City. I use different approaches to transform a given space, such as live sound performances, photography/video and installation. My sound work consists of recordings, feedback, concrete sounds, sine tones, the use of pickups and turntables.
I have presented my work in Ei Series (NY), Tsonami Festival (CHIL), CODED CULTURES Fest (AUS), Studio 8 Berlin (GER), Blurred Edges Festival, Hamburg (GER) No Idea Festival (USA), Multiple Tap, Rhiz (Vienna), among others. I currently direct the ISO series of residencies/sound events in Mexico City and La Hacienda Santa Barbara in Tlaxcala.
https://gudinnicortina1\.bandcamp.com/

Thomas Grill is a composer/performer/researcher focusing on concept-oriented sound art, elec- tro-instrumental improvisation and compositions for loudspeakers.
He researches and teaches at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where he heads the Certificate Program in Electroacoustic and Experimental Music (ELAK) and co-heads the Artistic Research Center.

The totems/altar series evoke an atmosphere of surrealist religion, consumerism, and mourning for waste. This garbage-installations feature radios, cassettes, cables, records, computers, and record players—both old and functional—blending evolution and progress with sound and catharsis. Santisima electricidad!

the Totem series are part of the PEEK research project Spirits in complexity — Making kin with experimental music systems, funded by the Austrian Science Fund [Grant DOI 10.55776/AR821]