Livestream Video
TIMEPIECE
A Live Speaking Clock
View of the gallery in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele before the renovations in 2010 © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Kordula Rüter
MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues 2021 ends with a 27-hour speaking clock, live performed by Berlin residents on the Grand Stage of Haus der Berliner Festspiele and accompanied musically by compositions from all around the world – an artistic monument in Corona-Times, a community project and a manifestation of solidarity.
A live speaking clock, performed by Berlin residents on the Grand Stage of Haus der Berliner Festspiele, accompanied musically by pre-recorded compositions from all around the world, will be the closing event of MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues 2021. The project, called TIMEPIECE, is based on a work by Peter Ablinger, who articulated the idea to perform live and in real-time the text of the BBC Speaking Clock in his composition “TIM Song” (2012). TIMEPIECE takes up and extends this idea into a 27-hour video-streamed, multilingual and musically diverse live performance situated in a slow-moving space on the revolving stage of Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
Starting on 27 March at 20:00 Central European Winter Time and ending on 28 March at 24:00 Central European Summer Time, TIMEPIECE paces out and commemorates the missing space of time created by The Long Now, MaerzMusik’s traditional closing event which could not be realised due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, TIMEPIECE travels through changing landscapes of music and speaking voices. The camera and the speakers – one at a time – are placed on the revolving stage of Haus der Berliner Festspiele, which turns gradually, completing a 360° turn every hour, like the hand of a gigantic clock.
TIMEPIECE is at the same time an artistic monument in Corona-Times, a community project and a manifestation of solidarity for artists and others hit by the pandemic.
TIMEPIECE is built by more than 130 musicians and speakers.
Would you like to follow the TIMEPIECE course?
Download the Timetable
Music by
Peter Ablinger (AT/DE)
Olli Aarni (FI)
Aho Ssan (FR)
Aho Ssan & KMRU (FR/KE)
Mitchell Akiyama (CA)
Anti-Projeto Anarco Fake (Mogli Saura & Francis Etto) (BR)
Felicia Atkinson (FR)
Baba Electronica (DE/BE)
Uriel Barthélémi (FR)
Big Ever (AU)
Galya Bisengalieva (KZ/UK)
Quatuor Bozzini (CA)
rebecca bruton (CA)
Nicholas Bussmann (DE)
Allison Cameron (CA)
CS + Kreme (AU)
Jason Doell (CA)
drb (Renate Wieser & Julian Rohrhuber) (DE)
Julia E Dyck (CA)
Jessica Ekomane (FR/DE)
Marino Formenti (IT/AT)
Ashley Fure (US)
Michael Gordon / BOAC (US)
Sofia Jernberg (ET/SE)
Junior XL (UK)
Kassel Jaeger (FR)
Khôra (CA)
KMRU (KE)
L CON (CH/CA)
|end| (CA/BE/PT)
Les Percussions de Strasbourg (FR)
Sophia Loizou (UK)
Miya Masaoka (US)
Melody McKiver (CA)
Christof Migone (CH/CA)
Gordon Monahan (CA)
nedalot (IR/DE)
Phill Niblock & Katherine Liberovskaya (US/CA)
Tujilko Noriko (JP)
Orakle Ngoy (CD)
John Oswald (CA)
Perila (RU)
Eva Reiter (AT)
claire rousay (US)
stock11 (Christoph Ogiermann, Daniel Gloger, Hannes Seidl, Jennifer Walshe, Mark Lorenz Kysela, Michael Maierhof, Sebastian Berweck, Sebastian Schottke & Uwe Rasch; arranged and produced by Hannes Seidl) (DE)
Surgeons Girl (UK)
Terre Thaemlitz (US/JP)
Loup Uberto (FR)
Charlie Usher (UK/BE)
Myriam Van Imschoot (BE)
Stellan Veloce (IT/DE)
Jennifer Walshe (IE/UK)
xenopraxis (CA)
Stav Yeini
Flora Yin-Wong (UK/CN/MY)
Yoneda Lemma (CA)
TIMEPIECE
A Project by Many
Based on: Peter Ablinger, TIM Song. A Pop Song for a speaking voice and accompaniment (2012)
Berno Odo Polzer in collaboration with Daniel Kötter artistic direction
Elisa Limberg scenography
Marcel Weber light
Berno Odo Polzer, Harry Glass, Laurens von Oswald, Lendl Barcelos,
Baba Electronica, Henry Andersen (Q-O2) – music curation
TIMEPIECE Visual
The project is part of the culture program related to Canada’s Guest of Honour presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada.