BONE MUSIC
What would you risk for the music you love?
BONE MUSIC - BERLIN
August 13 - September 5 2021: Thursday - Sunday: 12:00 - 20:00 - Villa Heike (Berlin-Hohenschönhausen)
In the USSR during the cold war era, the music people could listen to was ruthlessly controlled by the State. But a secret underground subculture of music lovers and bootleggers defied the censor. Incredibly, they built their own recording machines and used an extraordinary means of copying forbidden jazz, rock 'n' roll and banned Russian music to risk making their own records.
THIS IS THEIR STORY
THE EXHIBITION
The Bone Music exhibition produced at Ville Heike tells the tale of a unique underground phenomenon that existed in the USSR between the 1940s and the 1960s where underground technology, forbidden culture, recycling, Cold War politics and human creativity intersect.
It was a time when a daring subculture of bootleggers re-purposed X-ray film to make recordings of forbidden foreign jazz, rock 'n' roll, and Russian émigré songs.
The exhibition immerses the audience in their world with historical artefacts, ephemera, sound, films and installations and explores their activities that were both a defiant act of cultural protest and one of ingenious enterprise.
BONE MUSIC is curated by the X-Ray Audio Project (UK) in association with Cardboardia (RUS) and Buero Doering and supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Bezirksamt Lichtenberg, Amt für Weiterbildung und Kultur.
LIVE EVENTS
See new x-ray records cut before your eyes from live performances using a vintage 1950s recording machine. You are invited to the the courtyard of Studios ID on August 14th for an X-RAY CABARET evening with very special musical guests stars as they perform songs that evoke the era of Bone Music.
And join us and some very special participants at a X-RAY PANEL DISCUSSION event to discuss censorship in music.
FULL EVENT LIST
13.08., 18:00 - 20:00 h
Vernissage and press tour. Participation in the vernissage and curator tour is by invitation. (Contact: jd@buero-doering.de)….
BONE MUSIC - BERLIN
The exhibition venue Ville Heike has its own history as a Stasi office during the GDR era.
Bone MUSIC in Berlin seeks to make connections with the city and the GDR’s own history of cultural censorship.
Collaborations with the Prison museum…..
Be part of our exhibition and our project. If you have stories and memories you can contribute, get in touch……..
I took this soft, flexible record in my hands and looked at it through the light, and I saw the image of bones. Immediately, this fascinated me. Then I put the record on my mother’s gramophone and I heard a voice singing. I was stupefied. I asked him, "Who is this?"
Kolya Vasin, b. 1945, Leningrad, bone record buyer
"It was Freedom, Freedom in music. We were young. It was my energy. I am a culture trader. Maybe God told me to do it. I hate official culture and I love culture that comes up from the underground. I have done it all my life and I will continue to do it until the end"
Rudy Fuchs, b. 1937, Luga, bone record bootlegger
BONE MUSIC
Du kannst den Sänger töten, aber du kannst das Lied nicht töten
BONE MUSIC - BERLIN
August 13 - September 5 2021: Thursday - Sunday: 12:00 - 20:00 - Villa Heike (Berlin-Hohenschönhausen)
In der UdSSR während des Kalten Krieges wurde die Musik, die die Leute hören konnten, vom Staat rücksichtslos kontrolliert. Aber eine geheime Untergrund-Subkultur von Musikliebhabern und Schmugglern trotzte der Zensur. Unglaublicherweise bauten sie ihre eigenen Aufnahmemaschinen und benutzten ein außergewöhnliches Mittel, um verbotenen Jazz, Rock 'n' Roll und verbotene russische Musik zu kopieren, um ihre eigenen Platten zu machen.
DAS IST IHRE GESCHICHTE
THE EXHIBITION - VILLE HEIKE
The Bone Music exhibition produced at Ville Heike creates an immersive narrative with historical objects, sound and film to tell the tale of a unique underground phenomenon that existed in the USSR between the 1940s and the 1960s, when a daring subculture of bootleggers re-purposed X-ray film to make recordings of forbidden foreign jazz, rock 'n' roll, and Russian émigré songs.
It was both a defiant act of cultural protest and one of ingenious enterprise.
BONE MUSIC is curated by the X-Ray Audio Project (UK) in association with Cardboardia (RUS) and Buero Doering and supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Bezirksamt Lichtenberg, Amt für Weiterbildung und Kultur.
LIVE EVENTS
See new x-ray records cut before your eyes from live performances using a vintage 1950s recording machine. You are invited to the the courtyard of Studios ID on August 14th for an X-RAY CABARET evening with very special musical guests stars as they perform songs that evoke the era of Bone Music.
And join us and some very special participants at a X-RAY PANEL DISCUSSION event to discuss censorship in music.
FULL EVENT LIST
13.08., 18:00 - 20:00 h
Vernissage and press tour. Participation in the vernissage and curator tour is by invitation. (Contact: jd@buero-doering.de)…..
BONE MUSIC - BERLIN
The exhibition venue Ville Heike has its own histor as a Stasi office during the GDR era.
Bone MUSIC in Berlin seeks to make connections with the city and the GDR’s own history of cultural censorship.
Collaborations with the Prison museum…..
Be part of our exhibition and our project. If you have stories and memories you can contribute, get in touch.
Ich nahm diese weiche, flexible Schallplatte in meine Hände und betrachtete sie durch das Licht, und ich sah das Bild von Knochen. Das hat mich sofort fasziniert. Dann legte ich die Schallplatte auf das Grammophon meiner Mutter und hörte eine Stimme singen. Ich war verblüfft. Ich fragte ihn: "Wer ist das?"
Kolja Vasin, geb. 1945, Leningrad, Käufer von Knochenplatten
„Es war Freiheit, Freiheit in der Musik. Wir waren jung. Es war meine Energie. Ich bin ein Kulturhändler. Vielleicht hat Gott mir gesagt, dass ich es tun soll. Ich hasse die offizielle Kultur und ich liebe Kultur, die aus dem Untergrund kommt. Ich habe es getan es mein ganzes Leben lang und ich werde es bis zum Ende tun"
Rudi Fuchs, geb. 1937, Luga, Knochenrekordschmuggler