Ad Libitum

The 20th anniver­sary edi­tion of the Ad Libi­tum fes­ti­val is devot­ed to the con­cept of “PRESENCE”. This theme involves explor­ing the var­i­ous dimen­sions of con­cert spaces and beyond, as well as the dif­fer­ent forms of musi­cians’ pres­ence with­in them — through clas­si­cal per­for­mances, cas­sette record­ings, radio waves, impro­vi­sa­tion on a spe­cial mul­ti-speak­er sys­tem, and inter­ven­tions in the son­ic environment.

The sec­ond evening at Hash­tag Lab — on Sat­ur­day, 13 Sep­tem­ber — will be ded­i­cat­ed to the rela­tion­ship between pres­ence and space. Two of the three excep­tion­al per­for­mances will fea­ture musi­cians per­form­ing togeth­er for the first time.

The evening will open with Piotr Peszat solo pre­sent­ing a new instal­ment of his project “Non-Lieux”, in which the artist impro­vis­es in dia­logue with a real-time trans­mis­sion of sounds from the exter­nal envi­ron­ment of the per­for­mance space.

Next, per­form­ing togeth­er on stage for the first time, a duo of key fig­ures in con­tem­po­rary cas­sette impro­vi­sa­tion in Poland. On one side, Justy­na Banaszczyk — most often per­form­ing as FOQL, here under her cas­sette alias TJ Głu­piec — who has been exper­i­ment­ing for years at the inter­sec­tion of elec­tron­ics and radio­phon­ic forms. On the oth­er — Kon­rad Gęca, an inde­fati­ga­ble seek­er of new ways to renew the cas­sette as a medi­um for exper­i­men­tal and impro­vised music. Togeth­er they will treat cas­settes as an instru­ment of impro­vi­sa­tion, com­bin­ing exper­i­men­ta­tion with radio­phon­ic forms with a son­ic explo­ration of the space at ul. Bars­ka 29.

The evening was ini­tial­ly to close with a per­for­mance by Dan­ish artist Tan­ja Sch­lander, live-mix­ing record­ings of her so-called “pock­et orches­tra” of impro­vis­ers. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, due to per­son­al rea­sons she was forced to can­cel her trip. The finale of the third day of Ad Libi­tum there­fore fea­tures a spe­cial per­for­mance by Radio Noise Duo togeth­er with anoth­er cas­sette impro­vi­sa­tion spe­cial­ist — Adam Frankiewicz (you may remem­ber his per­for­mance with Olgierd Dokals­ki and Paweł Doskocz at AL 2022?). The tri­o’s impro­vi­sa­tion weaves togeth­er the var­i­ous threads run­ning through two days of Ad Libi­tum at Hash­tag Lab.

Performers:

Piotr Peszat “Non-Lieux” elec­tron­ics, ambi­ent sounds
Justy­na Banaszczyk & Kon­rad Gęca cas­sette impro­vi­sa­tion duo
Radio Noise Duo & Adam Frankiewicz radio receivers, elec­tron­ics, cas­sette improvisation

Production:

cura­tor: Antoni Michnik 

pro­duc­tion: Kinga Majew­s­ka
visu­al iden­ti­ty: Darek Komorek
sound direc­tion: Kos­ma Standera 

organ­i­sa­tion: Fun­dac­ja Pol­skiej Rady Muzy­cznej, Joan­na Grotkows­ka
co-organ­i­sa­tion: Hash­tag Lab

If you want to know more about the artists:

Piotr Peszat
Com­pos­er and sound artist, com­bin­ing ele­ments of instru­men­tal and elec­tron­ic music with mul­ti­me­dia, as well as per­for­mance and con­cep­tu­al­ist tra­di­tions. At Ad Libi­tum 2025 he will also per­form on 14.09 togeth­er with Alek­san­dra Słyż and Mał­gorza­ta Mikul­s­ka and the mul­ti-speak­er sys­tem of Biuro Dźwięku Katow­ice 2.0, cre­at­ing a son­ic inter­ven­tion in the park-and-urban sound­scape around Cen­trum Sztu­ki Współczes­nej Zamek Ujazdowski.