What Hums Beyond – Merche Blasco
10 November 2026 · Tieranatomisches Theater, Berlin
Site-specific sound performance by Merche Blasco with Lucie Vítková (accordion) and Li-Chin Li (sheng), preceded by a guided exhibition walk led by researcher Brett Mommersteeg (Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).
Public programme accompanying Wavematters. Attending to the Spectral. Bodies, Cities, Devices.
Part of Berlin Science Week 2026 – City Wide Events
Curated by Paz Ponce (TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
“Science is personal.”
“People who work in service of the collective adventure of making sense of the world around us.”
“With this year’s festival theme In Touch, we sought to make that personal side of science visible, and to bring people and science closer together.”
Berlin Science Week Team, Closing Letter, November 2026.
What hums beyond hearing?
3:30 — LUC & MERCHE WITH ANTENNAS AT THE BOTTOM
7:30 — LI-CHIN & LUC MOVING THROUGHOUT SPACE
14:20 — D. R. O. N. E.
21:30 — NO SOUND · LOOK UP!
23:10 — BREATH / PERCUSSIVE
26:00 — MERCHE: EMF – VOICE
A score for moving, listening, touching, and tuning into the unseen.
For Berlin Science Week 2026, sound artist Merche Blasco composed What Hums Beyond, a site-specific performance for our theatre, bringing together the electromagnetic life of the building and the extraordinary musical sensibilities of Luc Vítková and Li-Chin Li.
Equipped with custom-built antenna-rackets and wearable EMF microphones attached to her fingers, Merche moved through the Tieranatomisches Theater, including its offices, recording electromagnetic traces through the movements of her hands and body. These recordings were woven into a quadraphonic composition: an evolving landscape of drones, pulses, and hissing patterns.
Following Merche’s hand-drawn score, the three performers moved through the architecture, improvising with electromagnetic recordings, accordion, sheng, antennas, bodies, and space. A choreography of attention, where listening became a way of encountering the building. Its architecture became a living instrument.
The evening began with a guided walk through Wavematters by researcher Brett Mommersteeg, tracing vibrations, waves, and their transformations across the exhibition.
Through the intimate, physical act of listening together, What Hums Beyond brought the festival’s theme, In Touch, into the historic lecture hall.
Acknowledgements
My deepest thanks to Merche Blasco for her remarkable composition and artistic vision; to Luc Vítková and Li-Chin Li for their extraordinary improvisational dialogue; and to Zach Hert for his work at the sound desk.
To Brett Mommersteeg for his wonderfully personal journey through the exhibition; to Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros and Ignacio Farías from Wavematters for their collegial support; and to Fanny Welz (TA T) for bringing it all together on the production side.
Special thanks to the Berlin Science Week team for selecting our programme as one of the festival highlights among so many wonderful events across the city.
Programme credits
What Hums Beyond
10 November 2026 · TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater, Berlin
Programme curation: Paz Ponce (TA T)
Composition and live electronics: Merche Blasco
Accordion: Luc Vítková / Lucie Vítková
Sheng: Li-Chin Li
Sound: Zach Hert
Guided exhibition walk: Brett Mommersteeg (Wavematters team)
Production: Fanny Welz (TA T)
Exhibition curators and production support: Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros and Ignacio Farías (Wavematters team)
Exhibition context
Public programme accompanying Wavematters. Attending to the Spectral. Bodies, Cities, Devices.
Tieranatomisches Theater, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
2 October 2026 – 13 February 2027
A cooperation between TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater, and IfEE – Institut für Europäische Ethnologie at HU Berlin
Funded by the European Research Council (ERC).
About the artists & contributors
Merche Blasco is a composer, performer and sound artist working across experimental instrument design, improvisation and site-responsive composition. Her practice investigates relationships between sound, technology, bodies and environments through collective listening and embodied approaches to electronic music. Her work has been presented internationally at the Whitney Museum, MaerzMusik, Ars Electronica, CTM Festival and the Venice Biennale.
Luc Vitk / Lucie Vítková is a Czech composer, improviser and multidisciplinary performer working with accordion, voice, movement and experimental instruments. Their compositions explore sonification, while their improvisational practice investigates the relationship between sound, movement and architectural space. They currently teach at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Li-Chin Li is a Taiwanese sheng soloist, composer and improviser working between Taiwan and Europe. Her practice brings the traditional Chinese mouth organ into contemporary and experimental music, combining instrumental performance with interdisciplinary collaboration. She has worked with international ensembles and participated in artistic research programmes at IRCAM, Royaumont and EMS in Stockholm.
Brett Mommersteeg is a researcher with the ERC-funded WAVEMATTERS project at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research and writing engage with vibrations, noise, architecture, listening and spectral phenomena. He is the author of Variations of a Building (2023).
