Kookoo – the long light after time...

The gong can hardly be called an instrument. It should be thought of as a partner. Something—or rather, someone—that is not so much about being played as it is about being felt, accepted, and lived with. When interacting with this resonant companion on a meaningful level, it becomes impossible to tell who is the agent of modulation or decision, as cause and effect merge into one.

Ira Hadžić approaches the gong by establishing a cycle of give-and-take, a mutual relationship in which her creative impulse blends with metal, vibration, and aura. She does not play the gong, but savors the productive mishearings, surprising harmonies, and subtleties that arise when communicating with it. If the connection clicks—or oscillates and flows—it suspends the strict regime of time and opens windows into the before, the after, and the beyond.

For Kookoo, at her first concert back in Berlin after several months of traveling in New Zealand and Australia, Ira Hadžić interacts with a new setup consisting of smaller gongs. Together, they establish more interdependent relationships and create more opportunities to lose oneself outside of time.

The sculptures, videos, and paintings by visual artist Linda Havenstein reflect her deep engagement with the present day. With life in the post-digital age and the questioning of power relations in human-technology-money interactions. A longtime supporter of Kookoo, Linda Havenstein is finally back with her work at Ohm, which she presents in a site-specific installation dealing with the (in)visibility of structures and systems. 

Anna Butter’s approach to DJing—and to music in general—could be described as a form of critical audio storytelling. Not only because of her use of movie samples and the cinematic quality created by the sequence of her selections—as demonstrated in her two previous appearances at Kookoo—but also because Anna Butter’s sets are akin to the world-building found in the best science fiction: so unexpected yet tangible that it all becomes real, expressed in a language all her own. 

In one of her final poems, published only after her passing, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote about how “the soul commingles with mist, and rock, and light” before something new comes into being and temporarily materializes on this planet. The artwork by Carly Fischer, as well as the DJ sets by hosts Mieko Suzuki & Ara, and this Kookoo night as a whole are inspired by the final lines of this poem—by “the long light after time” … and by Le Guin’s and the gong’s lessons in empathy.