Sweet Spot: Open Garden 2026 – TERRITORY

SWEET SPOT – OPEN GARDEN 2026: TERRITORY

Sweet Spot. Lounge für Elektroakustische Musik with Sound installations from:

• Antoni Rayzhekov: Sixteen_rivers
• Cecilia Morales: Mutable Cartography
• John Fireman: Held
• Tan Bone: UNHEARed TERRITORY

The term „Territory“ (from Latin terra, „earth“, „land“) denotes a spatially defined area determined by ownership, use, or attribution. In biological and social contexts, it refers to processes of appropriation, demarcation, and defense; a Territory is therefore not a neutral space, but a structure of relationships in which boundaries are drawn, shifted, and called into question.

Applied to acoustic contexts, Territory can be understood as a field of sonic orders structured by listening habits, social practices, and spatial dispositions. Sounds occupy spaces, assert presence, compete with one another, or form temporary alliances. In previous years, different modes of the relationship between sound and environment have been explored through the themes „Biotope“, „Habitat“, „Invasive“, „Neobeyond“, and „Tipping Points“; „Territory“ now shifts the perspective toward questions of delimitation, control, and negotiation within space.

The presented sound installations explore public space as a dynamic Territory in which various acoustic layers overlap and mutually influence one another. They mark, occupy, or undermine existing sonic orders by inscribing themselves into what already exists while simultaneously generating new listening situations. The Orangerie Garden thus appears not merely as a venue, but as a structure of competing and cooperating sound territories that is restructured by the installed works.

„Territory“ thereby points to an understanding of music as a spatial practice that not only maps boundaries but actively produces and transforms them. Sound becomes experienceable here as a means of positioning and negotiation, making public space audible as an open, conflictual, and at the same time productive structure.

Four selected compositions can be heard throughout the day as a permanent installation via a 16-channel speaker system integrated into the landscape architecture of the Orangery Garden in the Mirabell Gardens.

Die Reihe SWEET SPOT versteht sich als Forum klassischer und neuer Produktionen Elektroakustischer Musik in Salzburg. In Lounge-Atmosphäre werden neue Stücke des Genres gehört und miteinander diskutiert. Begleitet wird jedes Konzert mit einer kurzen Einführung und der Möglichkeit, sich über das Gehörte auszutauschen.

Idee, Technik und Moderation der Reihe:

• Alexander Bauer (Komponist, Organist | Studio für Elektronische Musik (SEM), Universität Mozarteum Salzburg)
• Achim Bornhöft (Komponist, Leiter Studio für Elektronische Musik (SEM) | Universität Mozarteum Salzburg)
• Marco Döttlinger (Komponist | Studio für Elektronische Musik (SEM), Universität Mozarteum Salzburg)
• Martin Losert (Saxophonist, Instrumentalpädagoge, Leiter Department Musikpädagogik, Leiter PB (Inter)Mediation | Universität Mozarteum Salzburg)