My elevator in Skarpnäck, had a familiar sound when it was a bit broken ...

TARDIS Elevator

Recorded at Festspillene Nord-Norge in Harstad, no. I had a Musical Instrument Inventing Workshop for 6-8 y.o. kids with a concert at Høgskolen i Harstad, by Drivhuset Musikkverksteder w Isak Anderssen. Soundcloud set from workshop and concert here: https://soundcloud.com/drivhuset/sets/instrumentmakeriet-harstad

Harstad Flag Poles playing in the wind.

Some machine

English: http://bergmark.org/muzakblocker
swedish: http://bergmark.org/muzakblockersv

Muzakblocker

http://bergmark.org/anacousticstudyofthewind

Performance sound installation at PALS (Performance Art Links) festival II, a production by Fylkingen at Katarinahissen, Slussen, Stockholm, April 27th 2014.

"An Acoustic Study of the Wind (first performance)
(as a revenge for a work that was stopped, I will try to make a guerilla installation which will be the longest, or highest, instrument I made so far -- ca 33 meters)"

For me, I think it might also have been my most beautiful piece so far.

The purpose was to use this very long string to capture the sound of the wind through it. I made a contact mike that I attached to the loose end of the string with a glued-on magnet, and it worked splendidly. I could hardly believe the magnificent sound it made through this small battery-powered amplifier. (The noises in the end of this clip come from people banging the fence, which wasn't really my purpose for this, but as soon as you give people a microphone they just go wild...) I was also prepared to be stopped by the police at any time since I had no permit for doing this. An earlier proposal for a long-string installation at this location was turned down. I must say that there was never any real danger to anyone. The string is the most wide piano wire you can find (1,6 mm ø) and could easily hang more than 100 kg. Nevertheless, in the lower end, just to have a little weight, and for visual purposes, I attached a red balloon with a mouthful of water and the rest air, in it. It was decorated with a Pippi Longstocking image (which was not visible on distance).

Also check out the photos in this album:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bergmark/sets/72157645044469451/#

Video published on:
http://vimeo.com/98171793
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO7pDX5wn8k
Filmed with my very lousy mobile phone, other better videos will hopefully come later. Although I've used a smoothing tool to make it less painful to watch, there is still no sync between sound and image, which explains the sound gaps in the end of every clip.

http://www.palsfestival.se/pals-2014/public-program
https://www.facebook.com/events/613615145384388/
https://www.facebook.com/PALSfestival
http://www.fylkingen.se/node/1891
https://www.facebook.com/groups/18745699017/

An Acoustic Study Of The Wind

Fragments of a church organ improvisation at Nidos evangeliku liuteronu baznycia, Pamario gatvė 37, 93124, Lithuania, 2014 - 04 - 09 as part of:
NMI Neringa 2014
Nida, Lithuania
The pictures I took with my mobile phone during NMI New Music Incubator in Neringa, Lithuania, April 9-12, 2014.
https://www.facebook.com/bergmark.org/media_set?set=a.10152352086547933.563857932&type=3
Info and participators:
http://newmusicincubator.com/nmi-neringa-2014/
Place:
http://www.nidacolony.lt/
Conclusion:
http://ultima.no/en/program-en

Organ Nida

The The Long-Stringed Skomvær Lighthouse, played by me, the instrument developed  by Marie Kaada Hovden and me, during a 14- day experimental co-lab on site-specific art. Røst Artist-In-Residence at Skomvær Fyr Lighthouse, Lofoten. I had a 3 day workshop in experimental instrument building for all the participants, as an introduction to the Co-Lab co-organized with sound- and movement artist Marie Kaada Hovden. Recording with my not very good mobile phone.
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bergmark/sets/72157649502871965/
Film clips:
https://vimeo.com/113391356
https://www.facebook.com/events/1483996008479121/
http://rostair.com/workshop-seminar/
https://www.facebook.com/Rostartistinresidency


Skomvær Lighthouse Long String mobile recording

The The Long-Stringed Skomvær Lighthouse, played by me, the instrument developed  by Marie Kaada Hovden and me, during a 14- day experimental co-lab on site-specific art. Røst Artist-In-Residence at Skomvær Fyr Lighthouse, Lofoten. I had a 3 day workshop in experimental instrument building for all the participants, as an introduction to the Co-Lab co-organized with sound- and movement artist Marie Kaada Hovden. Recording with Marie's zoom, assisted by Rolf Meesters.
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bergmark/sets/72157649502871965/
Film clips:
https://vimeo.com/113391356
https://www.facebook.com/events/1483996008479121/
http://rostair.com/workshop-seminar/
https://www.facebook.com/Rostartistinresidency


Skomvær Lighthouse Long String zoom recording

Sten Hanson's Toothpick
Text-Sound Composition by Johannes Bergmark
Recorded at EMS 2014.
All sounds (except my voice) come from Sten Hanson's toothpick.
I made one recording with voice and one without.
The text is:
The last words of Alfred Jarry, the inventor of King Ubu and Doctor Faustroll, were "bring me a toothpick." I don't know what the last words of Sten Hanson were, but in the early sixties, he used a toothpick as a tool to manipulate a tape recorder to be able to record several layers of voice on top of each other. In this piece, we will hear his toothpick sing its own song.

First performance as a live piece at Geiger's Sten För Fan Festival 2014-09-27.
Sten För Fan poster by Geiger 2014
http://bergmark.org/stenhansonstoothpicken.html

Sten Hanson's Toothpick W Voice

Sten Hanson's Toothpick Without Voice

Recorded 2015-09-15 by Johannes Bergmark at the location shown in the photo.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Johannes Bergmark - platform, recorded at EMS http://www.elektronmusikstudion.se/ in Stockholm, sweden the 1st of April, 2010. I play my recent instrument Platform http://bergmark.org/platforms (in this case a single one, usually I have two) with objects. No overdubs, no cuts, no treatments except slight compression.

Platform for amplified objects

This is my contribution to the international project: https://www.facebook.com/events/500526036625098/
Well, how was the concert? It was one of the biggest audiences I've ever had, although I don't think anyone realized a concert was going on! I couldn't announce it since the concert hall was sort of squatted without permission – actually a tradition from the Stockholm surrealist group, who had some unannounced church concerts which sometimes ended with police interuptions. http://www.surrealistgruppen.org/ I posted it in the fb event above though, so theoretically anyone could appear with instruments to participate, or as audience. Actually, during my short concert, someone I knew appeared and said hello! I waved back silently but couldn't explain my strange behavior until the day after. She had no idea about the event, so it was an incredible coincidence!
My opinions about John Cage are a mix between enthusiasm and critique. If you read swedish, there is something here that I wrote as an answer to an inquiry: http://www.soundofmusic.nu/artikel/13-x-john-cage
See also comments at pictures that can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151222863212933.457531.563857932&type=3

Pantheon 4.33

I contributed anonymously, via phone, to one of a number of tapes of voicemail messages on the Automatic Confessional Project initiated by Hal McGee.
Because of the lo-fi quality of the finished product, I can't really tell where my contribution is among the compilations he made. See if you can find it amongst that lo-fi weirdness, if you can recognize it from this original that was recorded at EMS at the same time, during live playing in the phone call – the compilations are embedded in my discography, with more information: http://bergmark.org/disc

The Automatic Confessional

Improvised musical performance art with amplified objects and instrument inventions.

Johannes Bergmark makes, among many other things, surrealist musical object theatre with an evolutionary meta-instrument or amplified stage called the Platform. With his main activity as an improvising musician, experimental musical instruments, sound sculptures/-installations/-environments maker and electroacoustic- and text-sound-composer, he has developed over butoh, jester theatre and performance art into a kind of audiovisual object theatre performed as a concert but with a setting as a surrealist puppet play of toys, tools, kitchen utensils, materials, weird and kitch decorative things and junk found on streets and flea markets. The objects bring their history and connotations as well as their often microscopic sound potentials on the little stage, made from a cupboard door with a hidden contact microphone under the floor (usually amplification without any electronic treatments), suspended over the table with a clamp like a springboard into a poor man's utopia where the junk dances the funk on its own terms!
JB has been an increasingly touring free lance musician since he graduated as a piano builder 1996. He also lectures, makes pedagogical projects and workshops, usually focusing on untraditional acoustics, traditional crafts and basic sound technology, hoping to unfold a world where knowledge, skill, inspiration and surprise can meet and develop together and to inspire people to create their own poor man's utopias out of available resources.

In his attitude a skeptic as well as a surrealist, not an artist.

He resides in Stockholm, where he is active in the association for radical and experimental art, Fylkingen (chairman twice), at the Electronic Music Studio, in the swedish skeptics' association Vetenskap och Folkbildning and The Surrealist Group in Stockholm.

Check out my web site for a proper presentation, with texts of all kinds, lots of pictures, film and sound, and all other info that doesn't fit into the format here.

Johannes Bergmark

Popular tracks