Simon Berz on Clubhouse

Bio

“How can you give hope in art and amaze people?

Nickelsdorf. A town on the Hungarian border where a lorry with 70 bodies was stranded. And where they hold a free improvisation festival. The festival organizer hosted many refugees from the transit camp before they moved on. “Nickelsdorf” shows the other things a free jazz festival can do: such as including people in the community, showing humanity, reducing fear, and taking down barriers. Does a culture of hope really exist? That is what I am trying to find out.
It is actually rather easy to frighten people with art. But can you give hope in art and amaze people?
My creative process is energy. In nature, in dialogues with people. I am concerned with developing instruments, sound art installations, performances, languages and methods. My activities are based on listening and watching, on sound and materials research, on implementing experimental formats and their aesthetic mediation. In artist-run spaces as well as in public places, clubs, galleries or concert halls. My transdisciplinary work in experimental and improvised music, in sound art and new forms of performance aims at bringing about innovation, interaction and participation.
I am a drummer, sound artist and run a music school in Zug. I tour in Switzerland and all over the world as a solo artist, together with other musicians, groups, artists and with the drum students from my school.“
I’m developing my own rhythmic and sound language through an electro-acoustic drumset called the Rocking Desk and developed a “lithophone” consisting of stones producing a sound made by liquid dripping from drip bags that I’m amplifie distorts electronically. In 2011, this sound installation was awarded the “Werkjahr des Kantons Zug Switzerland” prize.