phantom kino ballett

Phantom Kino Ballett is sound fragment and black theatre, Holly Woodlawn’s nervous breakdowns, Taro ́s arpeggiated anime, Mario Montez’ mobile, Maria Callas’ chiffre, and Anna Oppermann’s eyelashes.” Like an eternally morphing, anti-narrative cabinet of curiosities, the work is constantly being revised by Willikens & Szczesny. Individual audio and video sequences can thus be added, removed, or altered, and site-specific settings are created for each manifestation of the project.

cabinet of kaput

In 2016 I started Cabinet of Kaput with Peter Abs and Alex Wissel as a weekly published art section on Kaput – Magazin für Pop und Insolvenz, the cultural website by Thomas Venker and Linus Volkmann.

For Cabinet of Kaput our approach was not a journalistic one, instead we were presenting art works made exclusively for this digital context in the format of 180 x 18 cm – a dimension following the speficitation and perception of looking at websites and scrolling images.

In 2017 (after a little pause) I reanimated “Cabinet of Kaput” together with Sabine Schiffer and since then we have been inviting artists like

Yesim Akdeniz, Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann, Pablo Castoldi, Norman Chernick-Zeitlin, Marieta Chirulescu, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Isabelle Fein, Vittoria de Franchis, Jessica Gisbert, Michael Hakimi, Simon Hemmer, Oliver Husain, Dorota Jurczak, Fernanda Laguna, Svea Mausolf, Jan Meier, Nie Pastille, Phantom Kino Ballett, Hedda Schattanik & Roman Szczesny, Franca Scholz, Hanna Schwarz, Timo Seber, Paul Sochacki, Constantin Thun and Francesco Vizzini.

During the pandemic the we reflected about how to transfer the digital format into a physical object – and created an edition of objects in the equivalent measures of 180 x 18 cm that appear like long and narrow columns, like cabinets or even stolas or scarfs. Those editions are right now for the first time ever shown at the Dutch Gallery Mieke van Schaijk in ’s-Hertogenbosch

cover artwork

TAL24
KOPY
Eternal EP, 2021

Fujiko 4:52
Lok 4:19
HT Remix (Harmonious Thelonious) 5:10
Fujiko Sognatrice Remix (Elena Colombi) 7:44
Kopy Kontrast Mix (Dynamo Dreesen & SJ Tequilla) 5:03

All music by Kopy except Sognatrice which was written by Kopy and Elena Colombi
Mastering by Detlef Funder at Paraschall, Düsseldorf, January 2021
Artwork by Sarah Szczesny

PAREDO EP

TAL Records presents new and exclusive works by three female japanese music producers: KOPY, TENTENKO and MIKI YUI who are based in Osaka, Tokyo and Düsseldorf respectively and a radical reinterpretation using elements of the featured works by Lena Willikens, the PAREDO MEGA MIX. All four contributions showcase their highly individual approaches to contemporary electronic dance music. Paredo is directly informed by multi-directional encounters of four musicians and their close observations of musical production and reception in practice.

In 2017 Lena Willikens and TAL founder Stefan Schneider have both, though independently from one another, been invited to Japan under the auspices of the Goethe Institut. While Schneider researched electronic noise music cultures in Osaka, LENA WILLIKENS and her artist partner SARAH SZCZESNY developed aspects of audio mix and filmed footage for their collaborational art project PHANTOM KINO BALLETT while in residency at Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto. „While in Kyoto, we often went to Osaka or Tokyo to explore the diversity of the music subcultures there. It was fascinating to witness how Japanese underground cultures adopt influences from abroad and turn them into something original and very much their own. We also saw live performances by KOPY and TENTENKO whom we quickly befriended.“

cómeme

From 2012 – 2016 I worked for the label Cómeme. It was a rollercoaster of years in which I had the huge luck to collaborate alongside so intense with fantastic musicians on the artwork for their releases (by looking back I counted 23 Eps and 3 Lps and the logo), on the posters for their performances and with some also on their stage costumes.

I owe so much to Matias Aguayo, Barnt, Carisma, Korkut Elbay, Dany F, Djs Pareja, Gladkazuka, Philipp Gorbachev, Ana Helder, La Jefa Avril Ceballos, Daniel Maloso, Alejandro Paz, Carlos Reinoso, Sano, Lena Willikens and most of all Christian S., who was my partner in crime in creating the artworks.

bar ornella