The 2024 Oscillation festival is a reflection on form, format, and performance. The self-evidence of an active performance linked to music has been altered with the ubiquity of electronic instruments and forms of amplification, which has also resulted in a larger variety of concert formats. Yet, absence of activity on stage does not equate to an absence of performance: objects might take that role, everyday events can be framed to perform themselves, sounds may exist as forms in themselves. Degrees of reality morph, appear, and disappear.
As ever, the listener plays an essential role in this context, taking part in the interaction by allowing themselves to be immersed in the sonic experience and respond to the proposed formats. Each performance situation thrives on a certain formality, with codes of behaviour which are more or less implicit. It creates a space of appearance for both performer and listener, oscillating between immersive proximity and reflective distance, between the autonomy of subjective experience and a communal experience amplified by the formal situation. Forms are dynamic spaces to be inhabited by new relations.
Spaces influence the atmosphere and the aura of the moment. Formats serve to make what is happening legible for a public, and channel the chaotic and dynamic situation which emerges when music, performer, and listener meet. The interlacing of form, format, and performance generates listening attitudes which might be perceived as a mixture of distance, presence, or participation, depending on, or fuelled by the spaces and places they occur.
Q-O2.be – info@q-02.be – previous editions
Oscillation is a project by Q‑O2 werkplaats, organised by Julia Eckhardt, Caroline Profanter, Henry Andersen, Ludo Engels, Christel Simons, Dries Robbe, Maria Margolina, Emilia Elouardi, Leo Van Damme, Z, and Ive.