Fylkingen
Fylkingen - New Music and Intermedia Art is an artist-run venue and member based organization committed to the contemporary experimental performing arts field. Over 300 artists from various disciplines use the space to develop and present new work. Fylkingen is run by its members and an active board and production group. It also produce and distribute recorded material through its own label Fylkingen Records since 1966.
History
The organization was established in 1933 in Stockholm, Sweden, then focusing on contemporary composers and a traditional repertoire. Over the years, the organization branched out into new forms. The first concert of electroacoustic music in Sweden was arranged by Fylkingen in 1952, together with the Swedish Radio. Since the 1960s Fylkingen represents a wide field of artistic practices.
Fylkingen was founded in 1933 as a Chamber Music Society of musicians and composers in order to highlight the new music of contemporary composers in combination with a traditional repertoire. Composer Ingemar Liljefors served as the organization's first Chairman from 1933-1946. The interest in new music eventually led to that Fylkingen in cooperation with the Swedish Radio presented the first concert of electroacoustic music in Sweden in 1952 and in 1963 Fylkingen arranged the very first concerts of computer music, or data machine music as it was then called.
Fylkingens concerts of electronic music attracted the attention of composers worldwide for the high sound quality and unconventional presentation format. Promenade Concerts with electronic music, music simultaneously in several rooms with different acoustic conditions and landscape music in Stockholm parks heard the news. In the 1960s the association radicalized more and more art forms took place at Fylkingen; performance art, dance, choreography, happenings and text-sound compositions. At the time, many of Fylkingens arrangement took place at Moderna Museet, with a detour to other premises in Stockholm and around Scandinavia.
The programs from the 1960s and 1970s are filled with performances by and with the international avant-garde: John Cage, David Tudor; Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Morton Subotnick, Ravi Shankar, Terry Riley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Nam June Paik, Henri Chopin, and La Monte Young, side by side with major Swedish composers such as Åke Hodell, Lars-Gunnar Bodin, Öyvind Fahlström, Sten Hanson, Folke Rabe and Catherine Christer Hennix and performing artists Margaretha Åsberg, Yvonne Rainer, Merce Cunningham, Antonin Artaud, Carolee Schneeman. Later, visiting artists have been, for example; Brian Eno, Kaffe Matthews, Genesis P-Orridge, Her Noise, Andre Stitt, Carsten Nicolai, Damo Suzuki, Tara Transistory, Gudrun Gut and many many more.
1971 Fylkingen opened their first own stage on Östgötagatan in Stockholm. 1986 Fylkingen moved to its current premises in the Munich Brewery, next door to the EMS Electronic Music Studio Elektroakustisk Musik i Sverige (the society for electroacoustic music in Sweden). EMS is since its start in 1964 the center of the Swedish electroacoustic music and sound art. Fylkingen was in the 1960s the driving force behind the founding of EMS and since then the organizations has continued its tightly linked collaboration.
In connection with the move in 1986 to Münchenbryggeriet the association became bigger, improvisational music dominated.
In the 1980s many choreographers were based at Fylkingen; Efva Lilja, Per Jonsson, Susanne Valentin, Irene Hultman, Björn Elisson, Anne Külper, Margaretha Åsberg and Susanne Jaresand (then Håkansson) to name a few. The contemporary dance substantial development over the past decades could happened in Sweden thanks to Fylkingens open space and room. Many of the choreographers who "started" at Fylkingen later moved to other rooms. Modern Dance Theatre established its guest stage on Skeppsholmen, the House of Dance and the Cultural House was focused on dance, for example. Choreographers and dancers have been active at Fylkingen during different periods of time and today is yet another new generation of choreographers active in the association, along with an older generation. With a newly built dance floor, renovated in autumn 2015, the physical conditions for dance are efficient to have a place in Fylkingens rooms.
Today Fylkingen presents over a hundred events a year and continues to play a significant role in contemporary music and art by being a stage, a platform and a place that provides space for the artistic freedom that experimental and radical artistic work need. Fylkingen is unique by being the world's oldest artist-run scene of its kind.
A Fylking is a plow formation with migrating birds. They fly so because the angular shape means great aerodynamic advantages. It is simply much less hassle to fly in's array, if one is to fly far. And further. It is certainly hard to be the tip of the bird, as well as to fly in the two extreme outer positions, but the birds often change place with each other. The gear drag.
— Excerpts from the introductory text in jubilée book "FYLKINGEN 80" (2013) by the former Chairperson Susanne Skog
Fylkingen Records
Fylkingen Records, also called Fyrec, has since 1966 produced a series of important records with emphasis on electro-acoustic music and new chamber music. Fylkingen Records also has a record store at Fylkingen. The shop sell discs from Fylkingen Records catalog, as well as many odd, exclusive editions and rarities from a variety of other record labels specializing in experimental music in various forms. Fyrecs aims to present the disc editions that take advantage on Fylkingens rich heritage of electronic and experimental art music, and highlights the most interesting composers and sound artists from a conscious gender and norm-critical perspective.
Books and archives
In connection with Fylkingen 60th anniversary in 1993 Fylkingen published a book about the history of the society: "Sixty years of radical and experimental art 1933–1993". The book contains, in addition to a detailed list of events, including articles, essays and photographs that reflect on the society's long history. In autumn 2013, Fylkingen published a new book in connection with the 80th anniversary, "FYLKINGEN 80!". The new book picks up where the former left off and continues to portray the activities until 2012.
Fylkingen also has an extensive archive of audio and video recordings, posters, articles, publications and programs, since the fall of 2012 kept in the Music and Arts Library in Stockholm.
Fylkingen journals
Since the 1960s, Fylkingen has intermittently published periodicals (Fylkingen Bulletin/Fylkingen International Bulletin 1966-1968 and 1983, Hz-Fylkingens Bulletin 1992-93, and Hz Journal online 2000–present). Resting on "the foundation for Fylkingen to engage in 'Art & Technology' problematics” laid in 1965 by Knut Wiggen (then the Chairperson), the journals often explore cutting-edge up-to-date issues of contemporary art and music in conjunction with technology and science. The artists and researchers whose articles are presented in these journals include John Cage (1966), Pierre Schaeffer (1967, 1968), Alvin Lucier (1967), Nam June Paik (1967), John R. Pierce (1967), Kim Cascone (2003), Pauline Oliveros (2011), and Roy Ascott (2011).