13/07/2021 20:00 – 23:00
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In this episode we listen to parts 3 and 4 of Risto Holopainen’s radiophonic work Below the Hearing Threshold, a radio show about marginal music, whatever that is.

Composers present their fictitious works and quarrel about who composed the pieces as the dialogue dissolves into complicated language games with far too many rules.

An earlier version of Below the Hearing Threshold was presented at the Ultima festival in 2007. However, large parts of the dialogue that had been recorded for that occasion were omitted from the concert version back then. It wasn’t until 2020, with a commission from Notam and funding from the Norwegian Cultural Council, that a new version was realised, this time including four new characters and a lot of new material.

The new version was premiered at the Ultima festival of 2020 as an installation with a print exhibition in a shed outside of Deichman’s library in Grünerløkka. The radio play was also broadcast on RadiOrakel as a seven episode mini-series during the autumn.

Risto Holopainen (b. 1970 in Sweden) studied composition in Härnösand, Sweden (1990-93) and at the Norwegian State Academy of Music with Lasse Thoresen and Yngve Slettholm (1994-98), and musicology at the university in Oslo (1999-2001). In 2012 he defended a PhD thesis on self-organised sound with autonomous instruments.

In 2008 his Garbage Collection was released on MERE records, which was awarded the Spellemann prise in 2009. Since then, a few other albums have been released.

Apart from video works, other visual art including prints, drawings and paintings have been shown at a retrospective début exhibition in 2019 and on a few other occasions.

Espen Sommer Eide is a composer and artist based in Bergen, Norway. 

Using music and sound as both method and medium, his artistic practice involves long-term engagement with specific landscapes, archives, languages and rhythms, with a critical approach to local and embodied knowledge. In addition to installation and performances, he has been a prominent representative of experimental electronic music from Norway, with main projects Alog and Phonophani, and a string of releases on the labels Rune Grammofon, Hubro, Sofa and others.

ESPEN SOMMER EIDE FIKSHis works have been exhibited and performed at Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen Assembly, Manifesta, Marres, Henie Onstad kunstsenter, Stedelijk Museum, De Halle Haarlem, Dark Ecology, Sonic Acts, Mutek festival, GRM/Presences Électronique, Performa Festival, Museo Reina Sofia and more. Eide is also a member of the theatre/art collective Verdensteatret, with extensive international touring and exhibi­tions.