A Choral Method

Aliaskar Abarkas is an Iranian artist based in London. Informed by alternative and communal art education, their practice fosters dynamic encounters that move from solitary experience toward collective expression. Abarkas often begins with a simple gesture – a sound, a score, a shared activity – which opens up a platform for storytelling through mutual voices, choreographic encounters, and the possibilities held within material processes. Aliaskar is currently a fellow at Sadler’s Wells / Rose Choreographic School (London, 2024–26). He holds a BA in Visual Cultures from the University of Tehran and an MA in the Theory of Contemporary Art and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London. He was previously a resident at Cubitt Gallery and the Swiss Church (London), and has been an associate artist at Rupert (Lithuania), the Institute of Postnatural Studies (Madrid), Castro (Rome), Open School East, and Syllabus V (UK), among others. His interventions and collaborations have been supported by institutions including the Barbican Centre, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art, The Mosaic Rooms, TACO!, Pushkin House (London), CAPC (Bordeaux), and LOCALES (Rome). Upcoming projects include commissions from Scuola Piccola Zattere (Venice), and the Singapore Art Museum

David Helbich (1973, Berlin) has lived and worked in Brussels, Belgium, since 2002. He studied composition and philosophy in Amsterdam and Freiburg. He works as a sound and performance artist, as a visual and conceptual artist, as well as a conceptual photographer, composer, curator and teacher. He has created experimental works for stage, for print and online media, public space, has worked on artist books, illustrated scores and photo books, as well as live performances and concerts, sound interventions, audio guides and realised work on social media. His trajectory moves between representational and interactive works, closed pieces and open interventions, conceptual gestures and actions. Many of Helbich‘s works and performances thematise concrete physical and social experiences, repositioning the audience as active and extending the space of performance. A recurring technique in this context is ‘self-performance’, whereby the audience takes on the roles of both performer and addressee. In addition to numerous lectures, workshops and performances, Helbich’s work has been exhibited and presented internationally, including at the Queens Museum (NYC), D Museum (Daelim Museum, Seoul), Kanal – Centre Pompidou (Brussels), Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), Philharmonie Luxembourg, UnionDocs (New York) and Café OTO (London). He has been commissioned by festivals such as Rainy Days in Philharmonie Luxembourg, Still Walking in Birmingham, Festival van Vlaanderen in Kortrijk, SPOR in Aarhus, Skanu Meg Festival in Riga, Borealis and Lydgalleriet in Bergen, Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, and Ultima in Oslo. Helbich’s curatorial and editorial projects include the online platform 1000 Scores – Pieces for Here, Now & Later which he founded in 2020 with Helgard Haug and Cornelius Puschke.

Volkmar Klien (*1971, Hollabrunn, A) spent his childhood in Vienna engulfed in the city’s rich musical life with all its glorious traditions and engrained rituals. Working from this background Volkmar Klien today strives to extend traditional practices of composing, producing and listening far beyond established settings of concert music. He works in various areas of the audible and occasionally inaudible arts navigating the manifold links between different modes of human perception, spheres of presentation and the roles these play in the communal generation of meaning. His works have been widely recognized, exhibited, performed and presented. He has received commissions from institutions truly varied in nature. For the Volksoper Wien (Vienna, A) he composed music to a full evening ballet, the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) (Troy, USA) invited him to produce multi-channel electronic sound works, and for Transitio_MX (Mexico City, MX) he produced a mixed media installation acoustically surveying landscapes. In his installation Aural Codes he turned the radio sphere over London into his exhibition space inviting residents to tune in and also interact. Throughout his career he has collaborated with his choreographer brother Michael on numerous performative projects exploring relationships between sound, bodily movement and human communication. Works stemming from this ongoing collaboration have been produced and presented at the ZKM Karlsruhe, Ballet Frankfurt, the Hayward Gallery London, and - most recently - by the Martha Graham Company in co-operation with the New Museum (NY). Volkmar Klien’s work has been awarded numerous prizes and awards, amongst these are the Media Arts Prize of the City of Vienna, State Scholarships for Composition of the Republic of Austria, an Honorary Mention at Ars Electronica, the Max Brand Prize for Electronic Music, the Scholarship of the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, the Alban Berg Stipendium and the Gustav Mahler Prize for Composition. In his artistic work Volkmar Klien can draw on experience gained in academic research. Having received a PhD in electroacoustic composition from the City University London he has held research positions at the Royal College of Arts in London, the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) and the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He is a professor for composition at the Anton Bruckner University (Linz, Austria).

Klara Kofen is an artist, dramaturg, writer, and researcher whose work is concerned with histories – speculative, counterfactual, real and imagined – and the ways technological interfaces shape our relationship to time and affect. As the artistic director of Waste Paper Opera since 2015, she creates sound-based multimedia performances that challenge traditional boundaries between live art, music, and technology. The collective defines opera as a form of multimodal performance spanning light, sound, speech, voice, gesture, film, sensing and sculpture – combining objects, space, and infrastructure. She also performs with Phorne, a band with Cameron Graham exploring sensory percussion, voice, and technologically mediated environments. Her research is rooted in a background in early modern history, particularly the history of science, the French Revolution, legal and metabolic histories, and the historiography of rupture. She has written and presented on subjects including trade secrets and artificial intelligence, the origins of meteorology, mystical sects in the seventeenth century, baroque gesture, scientific diagrams, and models of common ownership in performance. Her practice weaves historical inquiry with motion capture, speech, film, installation, and digital media, often working across synchronous and asynchronous timeframes. Recent works include fake & extinct (Centrale Fies, 2025), which stages dialogues between stones and legal philosophers to explore non-synchronous sovereignty and water infrastructures; Admiror, or Revolutionary Sentiments (Guggenheim Museum, NYC, 2024), a collaboration with Bahar Noorizadeh on the sentimental logic of capitalism; and Dead Cat Bounce (2024 UK tour), an oratorio about finance and catastrophe created with Gary Zhexi Zhang. In opera, Kofen collaborates as a dramaturg and writer with ensembles including Ensemble Molière and Opera Settecento. Her writing has appeared in Catastrophe Time! (MIT Press/Strange Attractor, 2023) and through Onomatopee. She is currently a creative fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at UCL London, and was previously a fellow on the Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s Opera Making course. She studied history at the University of Glasgow and the University of Oxford. Klara was born into a Greek/Polish family and grew up in a commune in Düsseldorf. She works at the Bookartbookshop in London and occasionally investigates international trade shows.

Loré Lixenberg is a singer and maker. Her own work extends into coding, sound art, radiophonic work, film, and direction – shaped by the needs of the idea. After training as a mezzo-soprano, Lixenberg went on to apply operatic voice to physical theatre with Théâtre de Complicité and the revolutionary, controversial comedy club KUUUB ZARATHUSTRA. She has since performed in opera houses, music festivals, galleries, and public spaces internationally, performing works by composers and artists such as Frédéric Acquaviva, Georges Aperghis, Dai Fujikura, Bernard Heidsieck, Isidore Isou, Janice Kerbel, Bruce McLean, ORLAN, Karlheinz Stockhausen, David Toop, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Trevor Wishart, often in collaboration with the artsits and premiering countless new works written for her voice. Lixenberg studied composition with John Woolrich, Andy Vores, and Robert Saxton, and took masterclasses with Peter Maxwell Davies. She later trained as a singer with Jessica Cash, Andrew Powell, Paul Hamburger, Martin Isepp, and Galina Vishnevskaya. Her background in composition informs her wide-ranging vocal practice and her own works, which draw on extended vocal technique, operatic structure, and participatory digital forms. She has collaborated with leading ensembles – including Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain, BCMG, Ensemble Recherche, and Cikada – performing music by György Ligeti, Harrison Birtwistle, Salvatore Sciarrino, Earle Brown, Jennifer Walshe, Pauline Oliveros, Conlon Nancarrow, Helmut Oehring, and Kevin Volans. She has performed at festivals such as Donaueschingen, Darmstadt, Witten, Wien Modern, and Ultima, and her repertoire ranges from experimental opera to politically charged performance art. She is possibly the only mezzo-soprano to have sung Luciano Berio’s music with Bronski Beat and Radiohead. Her own operatic and performative projects explore the intersection of voice, politics, economy, and technology. These include PRET A CHANTER (a live fashion-opera), THE SINGTERVIEWS (a series of sung interviews), SINGLR (a real-time operatic dating app), VOXXCOIN (a blockchain-based opera exploring fiscal exchange), and LETHE (a film opera on death rituals). Her piece theVoicePartyOperaBotFarm[myMuseIsMyFury] won the Phonurgia Nova international sound art prize in 2021. In 2017, she founded THE VOICE PARTY, a hybrid artwork that functions as both political party and opera. She stood as a candidate in the UK general elections of 2019 and 2024, turning electoral participation into a durational performance. As a director, she has staged works by Mauricio Kagel, Nam June Paik, Trevor Wishart, Niels Rønsholdt, and Salvatore Sciarrino, in venues including Den Frie (Copenhagen), The Sage Gateshead, SPOR Festival, and the Danish Royal Opera. Her productions often combine direction with performance, design, and film, such as THE FOOL (a mockumentary opera rehearsal) and An Evening with Pierrot Lunaire. In 2023 she directed and performed Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot with Neue Oper Fribourg. Lixenberg co-directed the Berlin-based art space La Plaque Tournante with Frédéric Acquaviva – a hub for historic and contemporary avant-garde sound, text, and performance – awarded the Berlin Senate Prize for Best Project Space in 2017. Her discography includes NANCARROWKARAOKE (a multitracked vocal transcription of Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano rolls, De Player, 2020), The Afternoon of a Phone (£@B), and the first complete CD recording of John Cage’s Songbooks (Sub Rosa), with Greg Rose and Rob Worby. Her artist book Memory Maps and her recent radio works for Kunstradio (Austria) and Deutschlandfunk Kultur (Germany) continue her practice across media. Lixenberg completed her PhD at the University of York in 2024. In 2026, she will premiere new works by Jennifer Walshe and Philip Venables at the Cartier Foundation in Paris and Musica Strasbourg, and appear at Wigmore Hall in concert with her duo Akkordeon Baroque.

Carolyn Roy has been a member of Musarc since 2023, participating as a vocal performer and writer in most of their projects since joining. She lives with unilateral hearing loss, which, as well as prompting explorations of mis-spoken words, (bad) singing and soundings, has produced a particular sensitivity to resonance – specifically the way that our bodies are touched and moved by sound and the more subtle resonance generated by bodies in shared space. Carolyn is a London-based, freelance dancer and writer with a PhD in dance, who works in the independent dance sector. As a practitioner channelling the somatic processes and understanding we use as dancers through other art forms, her body of presented/published work includes poetic and critical texts, sound narratives, film and photographic projects as well as live performances and political actions. In recent years her practice has focused on examining philosophical concepts through the materiality of bodies. Performance and text projects (2018–2022) explored what it is to be with others in this world, what it is to be-with as dancers, the politics (and pleasure) of dancing, with reference to Jean-Luc Nancy’s Être Singulier Pluriel. She is currently working in collaboration with dance-maker Amy Voris using scores derived from Experiential Anatomy as a way of encountering propositions made by Anne Dufourmantelle in Puissance de la douceur. Carolyn has performed in work by Gaby Agis, Marina Collard, Keira Greene, Derek Jarman, Graeme Miller, Florence Peake, Pacitti Company, Tino Sehgal, and Margarita Zaffrilla Olayo. She has been a visiting lecturer at the Architectural Association, Bartlett School of Architecture, East London University, Cambridge University, Lincoln University and teaches regularly at Trinity Laban, LCDS and Independent Dance, as well as leading workshops for non-dancers in community and healthcare settings. Carolyn is an activist member of artist-led collective, Chisenhale Dance Space.

Michael Schmid (www.breathcore.org) is a flutist and experimental musician, known for his work with the Belgian Ictus Ensemble and collaborations with Europe’s leading new music groups. His practice spans sound installations, concrete poetry, and composition. Since 2015, he has developed BREATHCORE, a project exploring breath in artistic, social, and political contexts, which has toured worldwide. He is the (co)founder of The Breathing Saloon together with choreographer Pieter Ampe, a platform dedicated to breath-focused practices. The duo is currently researching breath for their upcoming production ARIA, set to premiere in 2026. Schmid’s work has been showcased at prestigious festivals and venues, including Kunstenfestival des Arts, Kaaitheater, and BEAF. He has collaborated with renowned artists such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Boris Charmatz, Manon de Boer, Georges Aperghis and Simon Steen-Andersen. His installations and performances, including The Pitch and Breathcore – Riviera Blues, reflect his innovative approach to breathing as a musical instrument. He has released recordings with labels like KAIROS and WERGO and appeared on international radio and television.

Imogen Stidworthy’s sculptural installations and films are shaped by different forms of voicing, through sound, body, and spatial and temporal relationships. She spends time and stages situations with people whose language is shaped by powerful experiences, neurological conditions, such as aphasia, or cultural practices, such as shamanism. Her work grapples with the impossibility of glimpsing language from the outside; ‘What happens to sense-making in encounters with unfamiliar or unrecognisable forms of voicing? What different forms of communication emerge in spaces between languages? In recent years I’ve been engaging with these questions through the lens of autism, and non-verbal being.’ She completed her PhD ‘Voicing on the Borders of Language’ at Lund University (SE) in September 2020. In 2018 she was awarded the Special Prize for the inaugural David and Annely Juda Award and has won and been shortlisted for many awards and prizes.

Born in Taipei in 1971, Lin Chiwei is a transdisciplinary artist who received academic training in French literature, cultural anthropology and media art. Since the early 1990s, Lin has been involved in the Taiwanese counter-cultural scene. He was a founding member of noise band Z.S.L.O. and responsible for the programming of various alternative art festivals. At the same time, Lin explored the realms of religious music and art, notably temple sculpture and Taoist rituals, through intense research and field studies. These experiences, combined with his practice in noise performance and electronic music composition, developed into critical positions toward contemporary art practices. Since 2004, Lin has worked on the Tape Music and IDCM (Interhuman Dynamic Coordinated Models) series of works – synchronous protocols which allow individual autonomy in the forming of collective intelligence that leads to complex sound works. In his 2012 book Beyond Sound Art – The Avant Garde, Sound Machine and the Modernity of Hearing, Lin denies the term ‘Sound Art,’ and provides a holistic view blurring the boundary between human culture and technology. Lin’s art works were shown in various biennales and museums including Tate Modern, Pompidou Center, PSA Shanghai along with other non-art sites including local community projects, private residences, public schools, factories, churches, temples, bars and live venues in different countries around the world. Lin Chiwei lives and works in Shanghai, Taipei, and Paris.

Cameron Dodds is an artist, researcher, and lecturer whose work moves between composition, theory-fiction, ritual practice, and technology. His current project, the Haunted Network Research Initiative (HNRI), is a speculative archive reconstructing the work of the ‘disappeared’ composer Cameron Dodds. Drawing on cybernetic strega-hacking, weirding as process, and magic as method, HNRI explores unstable zones between scholarship and invention. Alongside this, Cameron runs Creativity Analysis, a post-qualitative framework that integrates philosophy and psychoanalysis to support resilience in creative practice. He regularly lectures on composition, creativity, and wellbeing at the University of West London, and has presented his research at institutions including the Jung Club (London), KASK (Ghent), and ZHdK (Zurich). He holds a PhD in Composition from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and his monograph Magic as Method: Praxis, Meaning, and the Re-enchantment of Process will be published by Intellect Press in 2027. Cameron is also working on his debut novel, a maximalist exploration of English village greens, urination magic, mathematics, aliens, folk traditions, hauntings, internet speeds, and neuromancy.