Stefan Roigk (*1974) is a fine artist living in Berlin. Roigk deals with the borders of abstract sound collages, sculptures, installations, performance and graphical scores. His artistic focus is to direct fragments of everyday life into dynamic intermedia arrangements, which he creates with an exceptionally visual language as a transformatory principle for his concept of sound and music. The synaesthetic approach of his work lies in the transfer of sound parameters and processing techniques on other forms of artistic expression and disciplines. He is using the compositional and deconstructivist principles of musique conrète, assemblage, sculpture, visual music and industrial design to develop compositions, which are presented as stage-like installations with narrative impressions. His works had been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany, Mexico, Italy, France, USA, Latvia and Austria and he has released several solo albums on Tochnit Aleph, Fragment Factory, Senufo Editions, Recordings For The Summer, Twised Knister and Public Eyesore. In addition to his work as a fine artist and composer, he curates concerts and performances at ausland (Berlin), gives lectures on sound in the fine arts and works with children in educational sound art programs.
FACTS:
1: I am very tired.
2: I feel enthusiastic to be able to work on the sound for our (Daniela & me) upcoming installation (unfamiliar home) now, because we had the idea but did not find the time for over 3 years!
3: David Tibet has a very speacial plan for this world!
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
As my musical approach is normally based on conrete sounds and my main focus is sound itself, I get a lot of inspiration out of my direct private surrounding like little tiny sonic experiences, which pop up randomly into my focus… telephone calls on my answering machine, the speaking sound of a straw in a paper cup (the one you get in th cinema!), fridges and ventilation-systems in hotels and a lot more… but also topic-wise, I get most of the impusles for new pieces and works from my private life/situation. I did pieces about my “to-do lists”, friends, the struggles of making art or being an artist, my idols…
Structural-wise, I get most of my influences and inspirations from fine arts… visual structures, collages & drawings… for example Julie Mehretu, Inken Reinert, Diana Sirianni, Martin Boyce, Rebecca Horn, Edward Kienholz & Nancy Reddin, just to name some of my influences.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
When I was a seventeen-old teenager, a friend of mine askd me to make music with him. As I had no musical experience and could not even play any instrument, I decided to use my computer as the main instrument, which was very limited at that time (1990). Because of the really bad sampling quality and the maximum sampling buffer size of 30 seconds, I got to use samplings of concrete sounds, noise and pitch shifting insead of “instrument-samples” very quick… maybe the influence of Depeche Mode and the fact that my room was near to my fathers workshop was strong also… The band never finished a track, but it triggered my interest in making music with sounds myself and because of this focus, I soon met my friend and longtime collaborator Oliver Jelinski, with whom I explored a lot of musical possibilities from noise to drone and cut up in the following years with our project Kei;m/Keimbefall/Kein Einfall.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
1. Depeche Mode – A Broken Frame (Mute Records)
2. Coil – Worship The Glitch (Eskaton)
3. This Heat – Deceit (Rough Trade/These Records)
4. Nurse With Wound – Merzbild Schwet (United Dairies)
5. Xenakis – Electronic Music (Electronic Music Foundation)
Very difficult to get it down to 5!
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Home… as I live here for a long time already and my son was born here!
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
As I live in Prenzlauer Berg for 15 years, my favorite place was and still is ausland.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I would do more on drawings…
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
Oreledigneur – Alpi (LP, Senufo Editions)
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Mario De Vega.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
As performer: Kei;m live-perfomance at Silke Arp bricht in Hannover, 2000.
As spectator: Andrea (MiniDisc), Chris Abrahams (DX-7) & Christian Kesten (voice) at studio 8 in 2017.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Most of the time I use my equipment simply like a reel to reel machine… and for a long time I do not use any electronic effects or something similar… only sometimes I program max/msp patches to get random structures into live performances… but in the end, technology does not seem to have a big influence on my creative process or output.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
no, sorry.
Don’t miss out on Daniela Fromberg & Stefan Roigk’s „unfamiliar home“, a sculptural-architectural sound installation at ausland in Prenzlauer Berg from 12th to 15th December 2018!
Photo © Oliver Schmidt
