The Beethoven Foundation for Art and Culture of the Federal City of Bonn has appointed the artist duo Roswitha von den Driesch and Jens-Uwe Dyffort, who live and work in Berlin, as City Sound Artists Bonn 2023. In close exchange with biologists from the Nees Institute at the University of Bonn and the CRC1211 research network, they will investigate the development of plants in extremely water-scarce environments. Their artistic research forms the basis for the creation of new sound installations, Roswitha von den Driesch and Jens-Uwe Dyffort will realise in Antofagasta, the capital of the Atacama Desert in Chile, and after that in Bonn at the Beethovenfest.

In their sound installations, Roswitha von den Driesch and Jens-Uwe Dyffort expose things that are not immediately accessible. Starting points are often the specific situations or also the character of a place – its ambient sounds, its history and landscape or urban integration. At the same time, they repeatedly deal with the surrounding environmental conditions, their causes and conditions. They understand their installations as an extension of space that opens up new experiences of hearing and seeing. They have developed numerous sound installations for wastelands, parks, lakes, industrial and church buildings, as well as for squares and streets in the city.

Roswitha von den Driesch and Jens-Uwe Dyffort live in Berlin and have been working together since 1994. Von den Driesch studied free art with Inge Mahn at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee and attended seminars at the Electroacoustic Studio of the TU Berlin. Dyffort studied composition with Franz Martin Olbrisch and Walter Zimmermann at the Universität der Künste Berlin. They have received numerous grants for the realisation of their artistic works, including the 2019 Hill End Artist Fellowship, New South Wales, Australia, the 2018 Global Cultural Exchange Fellowship from the State of Berlin, and the 2012 Villa Aurora (Los Angeles) Residency Fellowship. In 2006, they were awarded the Deutsche Klangkunst-Preis.

Their sound installations have been presented, for example, at the Tage der Industriekultur Frankfurt am Main (2021), in the urban space of Coesfeld / Kunstverein Münsterland (2020), at the Bathurst Regional Gallery NSW / Australia, at the Benyamini CC Centre in Tel Aviv (2018), at the Wittener Kammermusiktage für Neue Musik (2015, 2017), at the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen (2016), at the Donaueschinger Musiktage (2009), at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (2008), at singuhr – hoergalerie in parochial (1996, 2001) and at the exhibition Earmarks in MassMOCA, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (1998). In addition to indoor and outdoor exhibitions, their music and radio pieces have been premiered by WDR Studio Akustische Kunst and Hessischer Rundfunk hr2-kultur.

www.dyffort-driesch.de

On the initiative of Prof. Dr. Dietmar Quandt, Director of the Nees Institute at the University of Bonn, Roswitha von den Driesch and Jens-Uwe Dyffort attended an introductory event on the work of the CRC1211 research network (Earth – Evolution at the dry limit) in Königswinter at the beginning of October 2022. Afterwards, they joined biologists, geologists and climate researchers on a major CRC1211 expedition to explore the entire research field in the Atacama Desert in Chile, followed by a short residency at Proyecto SACO, the cultural partner organization in Antofagasta.