On July 30, the opening of the joint exhibition by the group +K+M+B and Kārlis Tone will take place at the cultural space Smilga (Eduarda Smiļģa Street 34A). The event will feature a performance by +K+M+B, which consists of Kristians Brekte, Modris Svilāns, and Māris Butlers, while the exhibition itself will be available for viewing free of charge until August 2. The exhibition and concert are organized by the experimental music association Skaņu Mežs in cooperation with the sound art project tekhnē, supported by the European Union and the Latvian Ministry of Culture. The opening begins at 19:00.
The exhibition will be open from the evening of July 30 till August 2. From July 31 till August 2, its opening hours will be 16:00 - 20:00.
Kārlis Tone – “Voice Fracture”
Kārlis Tone is a sound director, theatre music composer, and musician who, among other things, performs in groups such as Tesa and Grab.
Tone’s audiovisual installation “Balss Lūzums” (“Voice Fracture”) is a thematic continuation of the choral composition of the same name, which was presented at the Skaņu Mežs festival in 2025. The work reflected on humanity’s alienation from transcendence in the Anthropocene era – a time when human activity seeks to dominate the planet’s ecosystem. The installation translates this theme into a material format.
Christianity, which historically shaped Western European cultures, defines the human being as the cosmological centre and the centre of all living creation. Modern science, however, has been vigorously dismantling this anthropocentric illusion – if it has not already dismantled it entirely. As a result, a dissonance emerges: the leading spiritual tradition declares one thing, while everyday pragmatic and technological reality demonstrates something entirely different through practical examples.
Caught in the middle of this dichotomy is the archetypal “religious instinct” of the human being. As Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, once wrote, the religious instinct is inherent in every person and functions just like the instinct to seek safety, food, or the possibility of reproduction. It is an autonomous need within the human psyche for meaning and for connection with the numinous – that which evokes spiritual or religious experience. If this instinct is no longer allowed to express itself through rituals and symbols, it remains active and may transform into destructive forms: neuroses, addictions, harmful social practices, or fast‑consumption substitutes. Being an instinct, it always searches – and always finds – a way to manifest itself.
“Voice Fracture” creates a visual and conceptual vertical – an axis between the material below and the transcendent above. It is both a literal and philosophical reflection, intended to remind the viewer of the existence of this vertical dimension within practical reality. The work does not claim to offer ready‑made answers; its aim is simply to serve as an impulse in response to the human being’s natural longing for the supernatural.
+K+M+B – “Zerkulis”
+K+M+B is a dark electronic music project by Kristians Brekte, Modris Svilāns, and Māris Butlers. The musicians themselves describe the project as a union of mystics and introduce it with the following words: “Kārlis Straubergs wrote books about Latvian incantations that, upon their bearer’s death, were passed on to the next generation and were kept secret so that revealing them would not deprive the speaker of their power. Now these books have found their way into the hands of another generation – the artist collective +K+M+B. These masked men transform into sound everything they touch, and no person, beast, or tree that happens to cross their path can know whether, on some pleasant day, it might not slip into the influence of paranormal phenomena and sound.” Within this project, +K+M+B will both perform a concert and present a kinetic sound installation.
The collective describes the work “Zerkulis” as follows: “It has a body and a soul, but it is not a being. Zerkulis has no eyes, yet it has fine hearing and the ability to sense space – every corner of it and every step a person takes. From the space surrounding Zerkulis come noises. They are created by Zerkulis and resemble the snorts of a beast or the rumble of an engine room. But Zerkulis is neither a monster nor a mechanism. The sound reminiscent of snorts and rumbling may give the impression that it seeks attention, but that is not the case – it is all attention. Your attention.
You cannot look Zerkulis in the eyes, you cannot touch it, but you can communicate with it through rhythm and the experience of rhythm in space. Although Zerkulis itself is hidden within a confined, gloomy room, the room is not black, dark, or empty – it is full of the vibrations it creates, bursting outward, full of the emanations produced by its body. You can smell Zerkulis, but you cannot find it.
Zerkulis is presence. Something between sound and noise, between vibration and silence, between tension and calm, between life and death. It always listens and always responds. Likewise, it will never be possible to prove whether Zerkulis is guilty or not.
The tremoron (from Latin and English tremor, meaning “shaking,” “trembling,” also a nerve impulse or mechanical vibration) is a physical, kinetic sound sculpture that reacts to its environment, transforming the vibrations, noise, and movement of the space into a perceptible experience. It is neither a sound installation nor a traditional art object – the tremoron is a new form that unites material, sound, and movement into a single organism. It breathes, resonates, and speaks in its own language, turning the invisible (vibrations, frequencies, and impacts) into part of the artistic experience.”
