Koenraad Ecker - Raw Materials (2024)

Koenraad Ecker is a belgian sound artist based in Berlin. He is fascinated by the dialectic interplay between the acoustic environment and the social relations contained within it;by the magic of the ordinary and the ordinariness of magic. Characterised by an unorthodox use of foley, extensive field recording and a love for electro-acoustic hybrids, his work attempts to make the empty spaces in between things heard & felt, and to find a delicate balance between the fragile and the visceral.

As a composer and sound designer, his work has been heard at leading music festivals (CTM Berlin, MUTEK Mexico & Montreal); in squats and techno temples; at renowned art institutions such as ZKM (Karlsruhe) and Akademie der Künste (Berlin); in series like Black Mirror (Netflix), on music labels like Subtext & Opal Tapes; and during residencies in Kampala (Nyege Nyege), Beijing (Sivenlu Media Studios), Oslo (Zero Visibility Dance Corp) and Brussels (iMal).

His work has been nominated for the Ars Electronica prize (2016) and won the Radiophrenia Prize for Radio Works (2021).

He has taught or given workshops at the Universität der Künste (Berlin), Liszt Academy (Hungary), Nyege Nyege Studios (Kampala) and KHM (Köln).

Since 2021, his work has been moving towards an artistic practice that combines oral history, field recording and archival research. Together with Haldi Okudheyo, he is working intensively on a long-term artistic research project focusing on the vernacular oral history and archival sound-artifacts of the Belgian colonisation of north-east Congo, in collaboration with the MRAC (Africa Museum, BE), INMC (Institut des Musées Nationaux du Congo, DRC) and Nyege Nyege (Kampala, UG).