Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin – Chamber Concert 2

Social media has fundamentally changed the way we perceive ourselves and others. Today, identity is no longer formed solely in private, but through constant interaction with a digital audience. Images, opinions, and emotions are shared, evaluated, amplified, or overlooked. Visibility becomes a currency; comparison, a constant state. Caught between the desire for authenticity and the pressure to optimize, algorithms, trends, and expectations shape our behavior. Often subtly, but with lasting impact.

Andy Akihos’ Stop Speaking addresses this shift by having a generated AI voice replace human speech. Who is actually speaking here and who is being heard? The artificial voice represents a present in which the self has become reproducible, filterable, and manipulable. Language becomes a surface; identity, a construction. In contrast stands Dmitri Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony, composed at the end of a life spent caught between inner truth and external control. His music is marked by breaks, quotations, and ambiguities.

What was once political censorship now takes on a new form: not as an overt ban, but as invisible control through digital mechanisms. Here, too, strategies of conformity, self-censorship, and communication between the lines emerge. The concert thus connects two eras in which the public sphere is not a neutral space, but rather a system that shapes, evaluates, and directs. It raises the question of how one’s own voice can endure under conditions of constant visibility.

With your ticket you can visit all exhibitions from 16:00 to 23:00, including Lauren Greenfield’s Social Studies, which serves as inspiration for this concert.

Program

Andy Akiho “Stop Speaking” for drum and band (generated AI voice) [5'–6']
D. Shostakovich / Derevyanko, Symphony No. 15, Op. 141 for piano, violin, cello, and percussion [45']

Artists

Kamila Glass, Violin (Padma Trio)
Leslie Riva-Ruppert, Violoncello (Padma Trio)
Anna Kirichenko, Piano (Padma Trio)
Sergey Mikhaylenko, Percussion
Gabriel Ducomble, Timpani
Rüdiger Ruppert, Percussion

Realized in collaboration with Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin (German Symphony Orchestra Berlin). As part of the Kammerkonzert Serie (‘’Chamber Concert Series’’).