/// Workshops & talks

11:00 – 17:00: Jan & Enyang Urbiks, Spatial mixing & mastering parts 1 & 2, Urbiks Music

14:00 – 16:00: Jojo Schütt, Sonic Environments Beyond the Speaker, EMP Lab

17:00 – 18:30: Felicity Mangan, From Field Recording to an Octophonic Sound Field, EMP Lab

/// Installations & Experiences

14:00 – 20:00: 

• Juli Saragosa, Reasons to Scream!, K13 Dolby Atmos Suite
• CTN, Just A Look, P1 Studio 

/// Live & Fixed Media Performances

EMP Lab

19:00 – 20:00: 

• CTN, Just A Look (Film) (5min)
• Clifford Clement, Apophenia (Film) (16min)
• Mert Bimpasi, Shifted Blue (7min)
• roma ricaai, Anicca (18min)

20:30 – 21:30:

• Eleonor Bianchi, Who’s the Clown? (15min)
• Sibu Manaï, Fonnkèr Din Zourit (Complaining of the Octopus) (10min)
• nosebled, Vent (Live) (18min)

/// Workshops & discussions:

11:00 – 13:00: Jan & Enyang Urbiks, Spatial mixing & mastering part 3, Urbiks Music

12:00 – 12:45: David Ziegler, Introduction to Dolby Atmos, EMP Lab

14:00 – 16:00: Phelan Kane, Ambisonics & Binaural Processing in Envelope for Live, Fabrik 1

16:00 – 16:30: David Ziegler & Ciaran O’Shea, Production, Mixing & Delivery in Dolby, EMP Lab 

17:00 – 18:00: Beyond Immersion: Spatial Sound as Practice panel discussion, Social Stage

/// Installations & Experiences: 

14:00 – 16:00: Ciaran O’Shea, Immersive Dolby Studio Demonstrations, K13 Dolby Atmos Suite 

14:00 – 20:00: CTN, Just A Look, P1 Studio 

14:00 – 20:00: Taktmaskína, Noise Playground, Co Lab 2

/// Live & Fixed Media Performance

Saal 4

19:00 – 20:15: 

• elefou~, ~+-+-~ (20min)
• Para Vak, From All Sides (Live) (20min)
• Richard Scott, Interventions to an Orchestra (7min)
• Stefan Knauthe, Harmonic Drift (Live) (15min)

21:00 – 22:30: 

• RIO SIERRA, t r i p h o n i c (Live) (20min)
• Ana Bulović, The Radius of Truth (15min)
• Daniel Farrugia / Mycelium, Decay of Festivity (22min)
• Doron Sadja, Percepts (Live) (20min)

/// Workshops & discussions:

15:00 – 15:30: Fe, teachyourselftofly, Ensemble

16:00 – 16:30: Fe, teachyourselftofly, Ensemble

17:00 – 18:00: Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir & John McCowen in Conversation, Social Stage

/// Installations & Experiences

14:00 – 18:00: Spatial Media Lab presents, Saal 4

14:00 – 20:00: Juli Saragoa, Reasons to Scream!, K13 Dolby Atmos Suite

14:00 – 20:00: CTN, Just A Look, P1 Studio 

14:00 – 20:00: Taktmaskína, Noise Playground, Co Lab 2

/// Live & Fixed Media Performance

Saal 4

19:00 – 20:15:

• TAPE Ensemble, 4'33" by John Cage (Live) (4'33min)
• Felicity Mangan, Mud Flat (10min)
• Nilgün Özer, Housecat on the Hill (4min)
• Tseër, From Field to Live (7min)
• D.EARTH.A & 1553Hz, Éire (Live) (17min)

21:00 – 22:30: 

• Georg Hilmarsson, WEISS / WEISSLICH 7a - Kreis (Circle) for 12 world-receivers by Peter Ablinger (Live) (8min)
• Martina Bertoni, Hyades 83 (Live) (20min)
• Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir & John McCowen (Live) (17min)
• Joshua Fineberg & Olivia Mendez present Electronic Voice Phenomenon (Live) (25min)

Workshop

This hands-on workshop explores binaural spatial processing in Envelop for Live. Participants work with spatial panners, spinners, delays, reverbs and B-format audio within the binaural domain. The session focuses on practical techniques for shaping immersive headphone experiences. Please bring headphones.

Phelan Kane is a London-born, Berlin-based producer, engineer, artist and educator. Active across electronic music and alternative scenes for over three decades, he is both an Ableton and Max Certified Trainer. His work bridges professional studio practice and higher education, with a focus on sound, music computing and creative technology.

Basic experience with Ableton Live required. Please bring headphones for this session.

Workshop ticket required.

Panel discussion with Spatial Media Lab, Urbiks Music, Doron Sadja.

Spatial sound is often discussed in terms of systems, formats and speaker configurations. But what happens when we move beyond the technical setup and ask how spatiality functions as an artistic and performative choice?

This panel brings together practitioners working across electronic music, sound art, production and composition to reflect on how space becomes material. How does spatial thinking shape process, performance and perception? Where does technology end and artistic intention begin?

Rather than focusing on hardware, the conversation centres on practice: decision-making, restraint, movement, silence and the relationship between sound and architecture.

Talk + listening sessions

Two open-format sessions exploring Dolby Atmos, from core principles to practical music workflows.

The first session introduces immersive audio fundamentals, what Dolby Atmos defines, how object-based audio works, where it can be experienced and what is required to begin creating in Atmos. The second focuses on production, mixing and delivery workflows, with extended Q+A. Between sessions, small groups will have the opportunity to experience guided listening demonstrations in Catalyst’s Dolby Atmos studio with Ciarán O’Shea.

David Ziegler is Senior Content Relations Manager at Dolby Europe and works at the intersection of creatives, studios, labels and technology in the immersive audio space. With a background in studio practice and sound mixing, he supports Atmos production across Europe, from system design and calibration through to creative workflows and delivery, spanning the full ecosystem from studio to cinema, home systems, cars and headphones.

Ciarán O’Shea is a Berlin-based record producer, composer and mixer. With experience in studios including Sound City and Sunset Sound in Los Angeles and Park Gates Studios in England, he has worked across music, film and television. His practice bridges traditional production with emerging immersive formats.

Listening sessions in the Dolby Atmos studio have limited capacity.

Workshop

This workshop approaches spatial sound from a post-speaker perspective, asking how multichannel audio can be conceived within a listening field that integrates space and listeners as active components. Drawing on psychoacoustics, architectural acoustics, somatic theory and material approaches, participants explore room interaction and embodied listening as expanded modes of diffusion.

Jojo Schütt works with sound as a material and spatial medium across collaboration and research. Informed by electroacoustic practice and installation, Jojo holds a postgraduate degree from KHM’s Experimental Media track and teaches Sound Design in Catalyst’s MSVM programme.

Practical Info
The workshop combines conceptual framing with hands-on exploration. Using sine-wave excitation, simple procedural processing, low-frequency diffusion and transducers applied to architectural elements, participants test how computer-generated sound extends into spatial and acoustic interaction.
Bring your laptop.

Workshop ticket required.

Artist talk

In this artist talk, Felicity Mangan shares compositional approaches and practical strategies for adapting field recordings to multichannel systems, from acousmonium to octophonic setups. Drawing on recent presentations across Europe, she reflects on spatialisation, sound design and translating site-based recordings into immersive listening environments.

Felicity Mangan is an Australian artist and composer based in Berlin. Working with field recording, electroacoustic composition and synthesis, she creates quasi-bioacoustic music informed by wetlands, waterways and soil ecologies. Her works are presented internationally and released across experimental labels, exploring how environmental sound can be reimagined through spatial listening.

Felicity will present Mud Flat on Saturday evening in Saal 4.

Artist talk

In this joint talk, Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir and John McCowen focus on their performance ROFÖLDUR, sharing insight into the collaborative and compositional processes behind the work. They reflect on writing for contrabass clarinet and tape, extended acoustic technique, and the balance between control and openness within the piece. The session offers a closer look at resonance, structure and how electronic and instrumental materials unfold together in space.

Bergrún and John will perform ROFÖLDUR on Saturday evening in Saal 4.

Day session ticket required for the talk, performance ticket required for the performance.

For selected performances, Spatial Media Lab will design and install a site-specific spatial audio system in Saal 4 of the Funkhaus. Rather than using a standard dome or cubic array, the configuration responds directly to the room’s architecture, creating a hybrid setup shaped by the space itself. Outside of scheduled performances, the system will operate as an open listening installation.

An open session will also invite audiences to observe the live configuration of a work for the system, from technical setup through to performance, offering insight into how spatial systems are adapted, tuned and activated in real time.

Spatial Media Lab e.V. is a Berlin-based studio and community platform dedicated to immersive and spatial media. Working at the intersection of art, science and engineering, the Lab develops open-source tools, site-responsive systems and interdisciplinary collaborations that expand how spatial sound is created, shared and experienced.

Workshop

A guided sonic meditation and experimental embodiment jam rooted in improvisation, text and graphic scores, and deep listening. Participants are invited to explore sound through everyday materials, voice and movement, creating a collective sonic journey shaped by curiosity and shared attention. No prior experience or equipment is required.

Fe curates teachyourselftofly, a weekly sound art practice and community exploring improvisation and experimental performance. Their work centres on collective expression, embodied listening and accessible approaches to sound-making within a supportive, open environment.

Workshop ticket required (free).

Workshop

Two intermediate to advanced workshops addressing the full spatial production chain. Day one focuses on interoperability across Ambisonics, Dolby Atmos and object-based workflows, including mic arrays, render strategies and ADM/BWAV delivery. Day two covers mastering, quality control, metadata, binaural translation and archiving, guiding participants toward release-ready, platform-compliant spatial assets.

Jan Urbiks is a Berlin-based audio communication professional, spatial composer and percussionist working between sound art, research and advanced audio technologies. As co-founder of Urbiks Music, he develops spatial mastering practices that bridge academic research and applied production, with a focus on psychoacoustics, embodied listening and format translation.

Enyang Urbiks is a Berlin-based Grammy-nominated mastering engineer and musician. Co-founder of Urbiks Music at Funkhaus Berlin, she specialises in spatial mastering for experimental and electronic artists. Her sculptural approach to depth and dimensionality treats mastering as an extension of creative intent, uniting technical precision with holistic sonic form.

Limited capacity workshop. Internal priority booking applies.

The Radius of Truth (fixed media composition)

A single unresolved event unfolds through multiple simultaneous confessions, distributed across a multi-speaker setup. Each voice offers a conflicting account. Audience members move freely, hearing most clearly what they stand closest to, proximity shaping reality. Fragments from other confessions break through, suggesting a wider instability. Each listener constructs their own version of the truth.

Ana Bulović, also known as ASCHE, is a Berlin-based theatre maker and composer. Her work explores shifting realities and unstable identities through music, movement and interdisciplinary performance. Creating across collaborative forms, she presents work throughout Europe and is currently developing spatial sonic dramaturgy and music for a theatrical adaptation of Frankenstein, supported by MusikFonds.

Roföldur (live performance)

Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir and John McCowen perform ROFÖLDUR (2025), an 18-minute work for contrabass clarinet and tape. The piece brings together extended acoustic technique and composed electronic material, unfolding as a focused dialogue between breath, resonance and spatial diffusion.

Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir is an Icelandic composer whose work explores control, notation and experimental performance structures. Her music has been commissioned and presented internationally by leading ensembles and festivals. She is assistant professor of composition at the Iceland University of the Arts and released her debut LP Skinweeper in 2026.

John McCowen is a clarinetist and composer focused on developing polyphonic language for historically monophonic instruments. Working with drones, multiphonics and acoustic phenomena, he creates dense, shifting sound worlds. He performs internationally, has released widely across experimental labels and teaches improvisation at the Iceland University of the Arts.

Apophenia (film)

Apophenia explores the human tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated events. Drawing from personal experience, the work unfolds as an immersive multi-speaker audio-visual performance, tracing cycles of pattern, repetition and rupture. Through spatial sound and image, it guides the audience through moments of recognition and the tension between staying within a pattern and choosing to break free.

Clifford Clement is a Berlin-based Bangalorean sound artist working with installation and spatial sound. With a background in sound engineering and music production, his practice is shaped by memory, everyday environments and layered cultural soundscapes. His work treats sound as both physical and emotional presence, creating immersive environments that invite slow listening, bodily awareness and reflection.

Just A Look (film)

Just A Look invites you to reflect on how you look at others and how others look at you. Presented as an audio-visual portrait series through an eight-speaker surround system, a filmed figure is immersed in a composed sonic environment that surrounds the audience. The work explores perception, projection and judgement, asking how sound shapes emotional and social responses to the person we see.

CTN is a French artist based in Berlin. Emerging from breakbeats and drum and bass, his practice now explores the relationship between sound, image and social perception. Drawing on field recordings and rhythm-driven structures, he creates immersive works that balance reflection with movement, inviting audiences to question how they see and hear others.

Just a Look is also presented as an installation in P1 Studio.

Decay of Festivity (film)

The film component of the installation Decay of Festivity, presented as a standalone screening. Tracing the end of a celebration, it follows how silence gradually reclaims a space once filled with festivity. Originating from a field recording of fireworks heard through a metal railing, the work foregrounds resonance and vibrational conduction as materials transmit and reshape sound.

Daniel Farrugia’s work explores imperceptibility, communication and the sonic properties of materials, particularly metal. Drawing on field recordings and extended frequency ranges, he examines how sound is conducted through natural and technological systems. His compositions invite listeners to experience bodies and materials as vibrating, interconnected elements within broader sound ecologies.

Éire (live performance)

Éire is a hybrid live set merging traditional Irish elements with experimental electronic soundscapes. Conceived as a collaboration between D.EARTH.A and 1553Hz, the work explores silence, transition and the concept of Ma. Performers are concealed behind cloth, shifting focus toward listening and emotional perception. Through spatial sound and projection, the piece unfolds as a non linear experience of time and place.

D.EARTH.A is an artist blending philosophical, spiritual and musical practice. Drawing on long-term experimentation, their work seeks to empower through sound and restore visibility to the Irish language. Rooted in collective awareness and individual expression, they create emotionally resonant performances that centre authenticity, resistance and the transformative potential of listening.

Percepts (live performance)

Percepts is a spatial sound work exploring the threshold between sensation and perception. Drifting illusions, unstable tonalities and spectral ambiguities emerge and dissolve in flux. Rather than presenting fixed sounds, the piece shapes the conditions of listening itself, placing the ear and brain at the centre of an environment where sound and light continually reorganise experience.

Doron Sadja is a sound and light artist, instrument designer and educator working with immersive spatial systems. His practice explores extreme frequency, perceptual instability and embodied listening through multi-channel sound and evolving light environments. He has presented work internationally, including at MoMA PS1, Atonal Festival and Hamburger Bahnhof, and is a tutor at Catalyst Institute.

Electronic Voice Phenomenon (live performance)

Electronic Voice Phenomenon is the collaboration between Olivia Mendez and Joshua Fineberg. Drawing on the idea of sonic remnants hidden within recordings, they create disorienting, immersive sound worlds that unfold at the margins of perception. Working within a custom surround Max environment, their performances adapt to each space, merging spectral composition, club-driven tension and spatial synthesis.

Olivia Mendez is a Berlin-based DJ and producer known for her work at Berghain and internationally. Joshua Fineberg is a leading spectral composer and director of the Boston University Center for New Music. Together, they bridge experimental composition and electronic music, forging a shared language shaped by contrast, friendship and sonic exploration.

~+-+-~ (fixed media composition)

A five-track spatial album composed in third-order ambisonics and rendered binaurally. Field recordings from multiple geographies blur into a drifting sonic landscape shaped by modular synthesis, granular processes and unstable spatial movement. Drawing on impressionism and dream logic, the work unfolds as a nonlinear continuum of memory, ambiguity and transformation.

elefou~ is a Berlin-based Peruvian sound artist working with modular synthesis, live coding and free improvisation. Their practice explores spatial listening, technological misuse and the poetic instability of recorded sound, creating immersive environments that shift between concrete textures and abstract electronic forms.

Who’s the Clown? (finxed media composition)

A sonic walk through a half-abandoned circus at dusk. Distant melodies, dripping rain, rusted rides and fading announcements drift through space, forming an eerie, nostalgic landscape. Voices and machinery surface and recede, as if memories continue to perform long after the audience has gone.

Eleonor Bianchi is a Berlin-based electronic artist, producer and DJ from Rome. Working with processed voice, ambisonics and hybrid performance, she explores narrative through space and emotional texture. Currently completing a Master’s in Creative Production (Music) at Catalyst, her research examines how sound inhabits space, dissolves and returns as memory.

Mud Flat (fixed media performance)
A 10-minute fixed media work combining field recordings from the Wadden Sea with modular synthesis developed at INA GRM and EMS. Shifting tides, mudflats and distant foghorns are reshaped through analog frequency modulation, transforming hydrographic rhythms into a resonant, spatial sound environment.

Felicity Mangan is an Australian artist and composer based in Berlin. Working with field recording, electroacoustic composition and synthesis, she creates quasi-bioacoustic music informed by wetlands, waterways and soil ecologies. Her works are presented internationally and released across experimental labels, exploring how environmental sound can be reimagined through spatial listening.

Felicity will also present an artist talk on Thursday.

WEISS / WEISSLICH 7a – Kreis (Circle) for 12 world-receivers by Peter Arblinger (live performance)

Part of Peter Ablinger’s expansive WEISS / WEISSLICH cycle, Kreis (Circle) explores white noise not simply as sound, but as a condition of perception. Written for 12 world-receivers, the work opens a field where listening itself becomes the event. In this performance, Georg Hilmarsson brings Ablinger’s inquiry into attention and space into the present moment.

Georg Hilmarsson is a composer and educator based in Berlin. After performing and touring with Icelandic indie bands, he completed a Master’s in Composition and Theory at Boston University. At Catalyst, he leads Creative Audio Production & Sound Engineering, guiding students in composition and artistic exploration while pursuing his own interest in sound, structure and performance.

Hyades 83 (live performance)

An ambisonic acousmatic performance unfolding as an immersive spatial composition. The work explores shifting tonal fields, unstable resonances and gradual transformation, shaping a focused listening environment where perception and texture evolve through space.

Martina Bertoni is a composer and experimental cellist whose work examines sound’s ability to reshape perception through electroacoustic composition, destabilised tuning and drone-based structures. Her practice moves between embodied performance and post-instrumental approaches. Releases include Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone (2025), Hypnagogia (2023) and Music for Empty Flats (2021).

Shifted Blue (fixed media composition)

An ethereal EP reimagining piano compositions as they dissolve into ambient textures. Melody drifts into abstraction, shaped by memory and place. “FF0,” featuring Anna Karina, carries a fragile Ukrainian vocal presence addressing resilience. “Ble,” inspired by the Mediterranean, and “Some Things Are Different,” with Kassandra, expand the work’s emotional and collaborative landscape.

Mert Bimpasi is a composer and producer based in Berlin. Growing up in rural Greece, he blends folk memory with cinematic piano and subtle electronics. His work explores ambiguity, transformation and emotional restraint, creating atmospheric sound worlds that move between structure and dissolution.

Housecat on the Hill

A track balancing dark comedy and tragic acceptance. Sparse gestures and charged silences shape a space where reflection settles between sounds. Gradually, intensity builds toward distortion and burnout, ending in a final glitch that echoes a flatline. Sound and rupture briefly coexist, suggesting that freedom may lie in letting go, like a housecat on a hill.

Raised in the Black Sea mountains and now based in Berlin, Nilgün Özer works across sound, text and visual media. Drawing on folk roots and experimental practice, she explores memory, identity and shifting emotional landscapes. In 2025, she was named a recipient of the Will Smith Emerging Artist Fund for her multi-sensory storytelling.

Vent (live performance)

A live spatial, semi-improvised performance extending research into the imperfections of audio formats. Moving between composition and improvisation, the work uses a multi-speaker setup to contrast degraded and high-fidelity sound. Silence functions as a framing device, highlighting artifacts, transitions and the expressive qualities embedded within different playback systems.

Nosebled is the alias of Jakob Sæterstad, a Norwegian artist based in Berlin working with improvised electroacoustic performance. His practice treats recording and playback artifacts as musical material, using cassette loops and MP3 compression to shape forms built from repetition, degradation, instability and attentive restraint.

From All Sides (live performance)

A live improvised performance built around a newly developed instrument created for the festival. Combining software, hardware and custom sound systems, the work explores playful interaction and responsive design. The process remains visible, inviting audiences to engage with how the instrument functions and how sound emerges from experimentation in real time.

Para Vak is an experimental sound designer working with electronic circuits, cybernetics and live systems. His practice centres on improvisation and instrument building, exploring the meeting point of technology, organic complexity and responsive performance environments.

Interventions to an Orchestra (fixed media composition)

A nine-minute acousmatic stereo work composed for multichannel diffusion. The piece reimagines orchestral material through electroacoustic transformation, unfolding as a spatial study in texture, fragmentation and resonance as sound is redistributed across the listening field.

Richard Scott is an electroacoustic composer and improviser working with modular synthesis. His collaborators include Axel Dörner and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. His work has been presented at KONTAKTE Biennale and ICMC. He leads the Master’s degree in Creative Production (Music) at Catalyst Institute, Berlin.

t r i p h o n i c (live performance)

A live spatial performance for lap steel guitar, expanded electronics and multiple amplification systems. Three amplifiers arranged in a triangle create physical movement in the room, while sub-frequencies and evolving textures are distributed across an octophonic array. Using real-time ambisonic spatialisation in Ableton Live with Max for Live and Envelop for Live, the piece unfolds as an immersive, shifting sonic environment.

Rio Sierra is a Madrid-born, Berlin-based producer and video artist working at the intersection of sound and image. Rooted in guitar practice and influenced by downtempo and cinematic aesthetics, he creates atmospheric soundscapes shaped by repetition, texture and suspended time.

anicca (fixed media composition)

A spatial audio work shaped by a 4–6 breathing rhythm, inviting somatic listening as sound approaches and withdraws. Voice, field recordings and personal archives form a dense, shifting environment where sound appears briefly, then dissolves. Rooted in experiences of war and migration, the piece treats impermanence not as concept, but as something sensed through space and breath.

roma ricaai is a Moscow-born, Berlin-based artist working with sound as expanded awareness. Drawing on mindfulness, memory and lived experience, his practice explores war, migration and identity through installations and performances. Using digital tools and machine learning processes, he reshapes voice and archive into immersive, deep listening environments.

Fonnkèr Din Zourit (Complaining of the Octopus) (fixed media composition)

A modular dialogue with the depths of the sea, composed in a meditative state using Moog Subharmonicon and DFAM. Emerging textures evoke the voice of a squid expressing sorrow and resistance. Enhanced with FM synthesis and mixed in Dolby Atmos, the work unfolds as an immersive, oceanic meditation on emotion and environment.

Sibu Manaï is an artist, producer and singer-songwriter from Réunion Island. Blending electronic production with Maloya and soul influences, she creates politically and spiritually charged work addressing social and environmental themes. A multi-instrumentalist and collaborator, she bridges analog and digital practices, with her debut solo album forthcoming in 2026.

Harmonic Drift (live performance)

An immersive eight-channel improvisation performed on Eurorack modular synthesis. The work explores the tension between harmonic depth and raw texture, built from granular, minimal sound particles. Layers emerge and dissolve gradually, shaping a slow-moving atmosphere that moves between abstraction and meditative immersion.

Stefan Knauthe is a composer and synthesist devoted to modular electronic sound. A long-standing member of the Catalyst community, he leads Electronic Music Production workshops while developing his own immersive practice. His work investigates oscillation, texture and the psychological space of listening through detailed, tactile synthesis.

4'33" by John Cage (live performance)

With 4′33″, John Cage redefined music as an act of listening. Across three movements, the performers do not intentionally produce sound; instead, the ambient environment becomes the composition. Silence reveals the space itself, its subtle shifts, breaths and incidental noise. In this performance, TAPE foregrounds attention as the primary instrument, inviting the audience to hear the room as music.

T.A.P.E. is a student and tutor led ensemble dedicated to improvisation, experimentation and collaborative practice. Bringing together performers across disciplines, the group moves beyond open jams through guided improvisation and approaches such as graphic notation. Rehearsals, masterclasses and concerts create a space where collective ideas are shaped, tested and performed live.

From Field to Live

A live performance exploring how field recordings can be processed, reimagined and combined with synthesis. By shifting between real recordings, synthetic recreations and hybrid forms, the work investigates how each approach shapes perception and spatial experience. The result is an immersive set where natural textures and electronic elements merge in contemplative flow.

Tseër, the alias of Xianzhi Lin, is a Berlin-based DJ, producer and sound artist currently studying Creative Production at Catalyst. Working between ambient, experimental and dub-influenced forms, he blends field recordings and organic textures into immersive sonic landscapes shaped by environment and live electronic practice.

Listening sessions

Running alongside David Ziegler’s Dolby Atmos talks, these small-group sessions take place inside Catalyst’s dedicated 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos studio, built around an ADAM Audio monitoring system. The setup includes A7V mains, an A44H centre and A4V surrounds and overheads, calibrated using ADAM’s A Control software.

Participants will move from discussion into focused listening demonstrations, exploring how object-based audio translates in a calibrated immersive environment and how Atmos workflows function in practice.

Small-group studio places are limited.

Ciarán O’Shea is a Berlin-based record producer, composer and mixer. With experience in studios including Sound City and Sunset Sound in Los Angeles and Park Gates Studios in England, he has worked across music, film and television. His practice bridges traditional production with emerging immersive formats.

Installation

An audio-visual portrait project exploring the gaze of others. Presented on an eight-speaker surround system, the work immerses audiences in a filmed encounter shaped by a composed sound environment. Viewers are invited to reflect on their emotional response to the person on screen and the relationship between image, sound and perception.

CTN is a French artist based in Berlin since 2023. After working in breakbeats and drum and bass, he shifted toward more conceptual explorations of sound and society. Drawing on field recordings and rhythm-driven structures, his work blends movement with introspection, creating immersive environments shaped by emotion and attention.

Day session ticket required (free)

Installation

An interactive installation that dissects the moving parts of a noise rock band across four to eight suspended guitar amplifiers. Each amplifier responds to rotation through motion sensors, triggering pre-recorded instrumental fragments that shift in tempo and intensity. The work combines spatial sound and psycho-acoustic effects with a playful, physical invitation to engage.

Taktmaskína is the project of Rósa, an Icelandic artist from Ísafjörður. A drummer since childhood, she later performed in bands in Reykjavík before developing a strong interest in sound engineering, acoustics and psycho-acoustics. Her work reimagines the instruments of experimental rock, reshaping them into new spatial and interactive forms.

Day session ticket required (free)

Listening sessions

A Dolby Atmos audio film following a collective of queer-feminist superhero*ines who draw on science, technology, magic and ritual to confront sexual and gender-based violence. As they navigate conflict and solidarity, the work explores power, resistance and collective voice. This presentation continues the project first introduced at last year’s Catalyst MA Symposium.

Juli Saragosa is a transnational interdisciplinary artist and sound designer embracing contradiction in everyday life and practice. Shaped by a resourceful immigrant upbringing and a DIY approach to filmmaking, Juli works across sound and moving image to explore identity, technology and queer-feminist futures.

Day session ticket required (free)