Berklee and the Institute for Sound and Music Launch MASS MoCA Workshop

The cultural collaboration is a part of the Wunderbar Together initiative.

November 19, 2019

The Institute for Sound and Music (ISM) in Berlin, Germany, and Berklee College of Music will launch an immersive education workshop from Thursday, November 21, through Monday, December 2, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), located in North Adams.

The collaboration is part of the Wunderbar Together initiative, developed to celebrate the friendship and strengthen the cultural exchange between Germany and the United States. The finale at MASS MoCA represents the end to a program that began in March 2018 in Berlin.

The education workshop is designed to provide students in the Berklee Interdisciplinary Arts Institute with an opportunity to work on and contribute to the perpetual development of the ISM Hexadome, a 360-degree audiovisual installation which fuses cutting-edge art and technology. “It’s exciting to watch our students create new works for a unique immersive format, and show that work at a major venue,” said Neil Leonard, the institute's artistic director. “Additionally, they get to work with Nick Meehan, a Berklee alumnus and founding artistic director for the ISM."

The program at MASS MoCA will offer hands-on interaction with the technology, exploring ways in which leading-edge immersive formats for fine art can advance cultural engagement now and in the future. 

The Hexadome is the ISM’s first step in its campaign to build a museum in recognition of sound, immersive arts, and electronic music culture in Berlin. The ISM commissioned new installations during the tour from several artists, including Suzanne Ciani, visiting scholar in electronic production and engineering, and Herman Kolgen, an acclaimed multidisciplinary artist. The installations are designed to push the capabilities of the Hexadome’s unique immersive architecture as a direct means of expression, shared experience, and form of connection with the audience.

The ISM Hexadome has been hosted by the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts in San Francisco and The Musée D’Art Contemporain de Montréal (The MAC). 

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