Christina Kubisch

Christina Kubisch (born January 31, 1948) is a German composer, performance artist, professor and flautist. She composes both electronic and acoustic music for multimedia installations. She gained recognition in the mid-1970s from her early works including concerts, performances and installations. Her work focuses on synthesizing audio and visual arts to create multi-sensory experiences for participants. She focuses on finding sounds and music in unusual places that participants would normally not think of as somewhere to experience sound.

Kubisch was born in Bremen, Germany in 1948. She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Germany from 1967 - 1968. She studied flute, piano and composition at the Academy of Music in Hamburg, Germany and the Jazz Academy of Graz, Austria from 1969 - 1972. From 1972 - 1974, she continued studying music at the Conservatory of Zurich. In 1974 she moved to Milan, Italy where she began studying composition and electronic music at the conservatory of Milan. She graduated with a diploma in 1976.

Kubisch began performing in 1974. She held concerts in Europe and the United States, and during the period from 1974 -1980 she began performing with Italian artist Fabrizio Plessi to create video concerts and installations. She created her first sound installations and sound sculptures in 1980 and began working in electroacoustic composition. Her works during this time included "Two and Two" (1977), a live, multimedia performance and "Tempo Liquido" (1979), a minimalist piece.

From 1980 - 1981, Kubisch began studying electronics at the Technical Institute of Milan and began working with electromagnetic induction. She began creating sound installations as a way to move out of the concert hall space. Her 1981 work "Il Respiro del Mare" began her sound engineering career, for which she developed an electromagnetic sound induction system.

In 1982, Kubisch participated in the Venice Biennale. In 1986 she began working with a new medium, ultraviolet light, and in 1987 she moved to Berlin. During that time, she created the pieces "On Air" (1984) and "Iter Magneticum" (1986) and "Night Flight" (1987). In 1988, Kubisch received the Award of the German Industrial Association and took on a residency grant at the Barkenhoff in Worpswede, Germany. In 1989 she became a lecturer at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, Germany and in 1990 she received a projects grant from Kunstfonds e.V., Bonn. From 1990 to 1991, Kubisch began creating her first works with solar energy. She also served as a guest lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Münster, Germany and received a working grant from the Senator for Cultural Affairs, Berlin. She received another studio grant from the Senator in 1994. After 1991 and until 1994 she served as a guest professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. In 1992 she was given an international residency project by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand. From 1994 to 1995, Kubisch served as a guest professor at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Kubisch's 1994 installation "Sechs Spiegel" is one of her better known pieces, and the sound was recorded and released as a CD. The piece used the architectural proportions of the German building the Ludgwigskirche to determine the rates of repetitions and pauses in vibrating drinking glasses. In 1994 Kubisch was hired as a professor of sculpture and media art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saarbrücken, Germany, and she continued to serve in that position until 2013. In 1996, Kubisch began "The Clocktower Project" in Massachusetts, a project in which she reactivated a clocktower that had long been out of commission. She created and recorded sounds for the project by ringing, striking, hammering and brushing the bells of the clock with different objects. In 1997 she was made a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.

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