POLISH RADIO EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO REVISITED

Operating from 1957 to 2003, the Polish Radio Experimental Studio was one of the first European centers of electroacoustic music. During this period, it produced several hundred hours of autonomous experimental music, as well as a second number of film, theater and radio illustrations. Among those who composed at SEPR were Krzysztof Penderecki, Bogusław Schaeffer and Eugeniusz Rudnik, but also Tomasz Stanko, Arne Nordheim (Norway), Lejaren Hiller (USA), Vladan Radovanović (Serbia) and Wataru Uenami (Japan). In addition, the most prominent representatives of the visual and performing arts in the broadest sense have collaborated with the center, including: Krzysztof Wodiczko, Zbigniew Rybczyński and Andrzej Wajda. In turn, popular international film co-productions such as "Silent Star" (1958) by Kurt Maetzig, "Test of Pilot Pirx" (1967) by Marek Piestrak, and "Pan Kleks Academy" (1987) by Krzysztof Gradowski influenced the imagination of millions of mass culture viewers in the Eastern Bloc, remaining to this day, often unconsciously, a component of the cultural identity of the entire region.

Michał Mendyk - as curator of the Automatophone Foundation, as well in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, among others - has been researching, popularising and artistically reactivating SEPR since 2009, working regularly with such distinguished experts as Michal Libera, Boleslaw Blaszczyk and Daniel Muzyczuk. The "Polish Radio Experimental Studio Revisited" strategy has resulted in more than 20 CD publications and the "SEPR Library" book series launched in 2018, dozens of concerts in Poland, Germany, the UK, Norway, Serbia and Italy, a six-month exhibition at Germany's prestigious ZKM Karlsurhe, a free sample library from SEPR prepared in cooperation with Ableton, which has so far been used by more than 20,000 electronic music creators from around the world, and an open competition for songs based on the sample library held with The Quietus magazine.

Since 2009, SEPR's output has attracted such notable contemporary artists as German contemporary music ensemble zeitkratzer, Norwegian composer and vocalist Maja S.K. Ratkje, French musique concrète artist Lionel Marchetti, American post-rock scene guru David Grubbs, and icons of new electronic music: duos Mouse on Mars and Matmos.