Stefan Karrer

July - December

Stefan Karrer, born 1981 in Basel, lives and works in Vienna. He studied Music and Media Art (BA) and Contemporary Arts Practice (MA) at Bern University of the Arts. Stefan works with collections of found digital material from which he derives audio-visual installations and performances, video, sound and text works.

During his six-month residency in Johannesburg and Cape Town from 9 July to 29 December 2019, he looks forward to experiencing South Africa firsthand and connecting with local artists and musicians. In his work, Stefan is interested in the developments of digitilization, and during his residency, will explore similarities and differences in this area between Europe and Africa.

Stefan explains: “Sound and music always play an important role in my artistic work. I’m naturally interested in the local music scenes and in connection with the digital revolution that has made it possible to use only a laptop and headphones equipped to produce and release music. ‘Everybody is taking the template and refigures it… People in the townships, across South Africa, across the continent, they are using computers, they are using Fruityloops, they are using Cakewalk, like all the kids around the world. But they are corrupting it, they bend it to their own language…’ This statement by the South African composer Neo Muyanga, which I came across in the documentation Fonko (2014), expresses my interest very well in this respect. My artistic work also moves between the global templates and the subjective bending of these templates, and I think that I can learn something about this in South Africa that I can only vaguely describe at this point.”