THOMAS ANKERSMIT

THOMAS ANKERSMIT (1979) is based in Berlin and Amsterdam, plays saxophone, makes electronic music and creates installation pieces with sound, infrasound and modifications to the acoustic characters of spaces. He has performed throughout Europe, North America and Asia, both solo as well as with artists such as Phill Niblock, Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Axel Drner, Keith Rowe, Thomas Lehn, Voice Crack, Gert-Jan Prins, Borbetomagus and Alvin Lucier.

Influenced more by experimental and electroacoustic practices than (free) jazz, Ankersmit focuses on exploring the timbral extremes of the saxophone. His electronic music is constructed out of swarms of electro-mechanical micro-events with an acute sense for detail and intensity, combining the delicate instability of analogue synthesizers with the precision of computer editing and multitracking.

His work has been presented at PS1/MoMA (New York), de Appel and Paradiso (Amsterdam), Kunstwerke, Podewil, Tesla and Club Transmediale (Berlin), The Kunsthalle Basel, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), in Cologne, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Stockholm, Oslo, Paris, Bologna, Vienna and elsewhere.

Ankersmit will perform at 23five's Eleventh Annual Activating the Medium festival in 2008, collaborating with Phill Niblock.