Portale 2027

A planetarium was built to display the sky. ‘Portale’ regards it as a medium in its own right, as a dome of light and sound that can be played like an instrument. Here, hearing guides the eye, and image and sound emerge from the same space, rather than merely accompanying one another.

Images surround the audience from all sides, whilst ambisonic sound moves across the planetarium’s 49.4-speaker system throughout the 23-metre-wide dome. Darkness, the curve of the horizon and an audience reclining together become the material for the composition.

The eleven audiovisual pieces range from focused gestures to expansive spatial architectures. Raw bytes from old system files are interpreted as colour and sound and embedded within the spherical space. Extreme close-ups of the body grow into a warm, breathing landscape. Interferences between drawing, scan and screen become floating beings, and an organism drifts through a distant digital future.

Launched in 2023, the ‘Portale’ project returns for its third edition as part of the CTM Festival 2027, posing the question:

What can a planetarium be when it begins with sound?

Artists: [

AV] SoundS UdK is an artists’ collective from the ‘Sound Studies and Sonic Arts’ Master’s programme at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Their works were created for the dome of the Zeiss Großplanetarium and have been presented under the title ‘Portale’ since 2023. Previous editions were produced in collaboration with Fraunhofer HHI and the École Estienne in Paris and were shown as part of the ‘Sous Dôme’ festival at the planetarium of the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie in Paris.

Project leaders:

Prof. Daisuke Ishida and Martin Sulzer (Sound Studies and Sonic Arts, Berlin University of the Arts)

With Anaparn, Zeliha Dogusan, Trevor Doherty + Anna Mikheeva, esil, Clay Hillenburg, daniel k, Ruben Kotkamp + Aphex Redditor, Nnux, Pedro Mileu, Tom Varvill and elisa visca.