BAŞAK GÜNAK

Başak Günak is a Istanbul born, Berlin based sound artist and composer, also internationally known as AH! KOSMOS in the field of electronic music. Her work includes sound art, performance, sound installation, composition for theater & contemporary dance.

Başak Günak released two solo LPs from Compost Records & Denovali Records, two collaborative LPs with and numerous EPs. Her album ‘Beautiful Swamp’ was listed as Best Albums of 2018 by Deutschlandfunk Kultur and ‘Bluets’ was selected by Byte.FM as Best Albums of 2022 and. Both timeless and otherworldly, Günak’s work unconsciously taps into something beyond an immediate surrounding or experience, reaching for the transcendental. Günak uses audio test equipment, acoustic instruments and found sounds to build her own sonic realm in which to interrogate the mystical and metaphysical implications of sound.

In addition to her musical compositions as AH! KOSMOS, Günak pursues her sound experimentations as a sound artist, composing for theatre, contemporary dance, film and visual art projects, and realising site-specific performances. Her works have been featured worldwide in several festivals and institutions, such as Barbican Theatre (UK), Martin-Gropius Bau(DE), Royal Theater Carré (NL), Sonar Festival (SP), Berlin CTM Festival (DE), Rotterdamse Schouwburg (NL) and Prague Quadrennial (CZ). In 2020, she presented her latest solo sound installation THE WELL, a piece for 11 speakers and performance in VKV Museum Istanbul.

Recently, she has contributed composition for Martin-Gropius Bau, Berlin State Museums, Kunstmuseum Basel, Your Data Mirror which was awarded for 2 Webby Awards in Activism. She is invited to residencies in Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm, HELLERAU Center For European Arts and to Bijloke Academy to realize her piece in hybrid format “Flesh is a flesh is a flesh”.

In her last solo album “Rewilding” (September 20th, 2024), Başak Günak has worked with the themes of (auto-)rewilding, foraging and decay, while also incorporating sounds she has gathered from her sound art and sound installations. “Rewilding” embodies the sounds of whistles, whispers, a deconstruction of a South-Eastern Anatolian folk song and the instruments; organ, bass clarinet, halldrophone, Buchla 100 and a broken piano. As foraging does not require territorial exclusivity, Başak Günak weaves together three songs from her sound installations presented in 2020 and 2023.

While reimaging whispers, whistles, murmurs and sine waves as the auto-rewilders of the soundscape of the album, Günak creates a soft and porous medium that later disappears into the swamp. Sometimes these whistles take the form of a distant sound of a murmur that tends to disappear and then reaches to the surface again and overflows into audibility.

The live performance of “Rewilding” is creating its own ecosystem, a sonic and visual one. In its being it’s creating a gentle hum, spangled with electronics and bells, like a return to the immense Anatolian plateau, a subterranean labyrinth where murmured voices and abyssal drones intersect, forming an immense mantra. In this live project, Günak collaborates with Berlin-based Portuguese filmmaker and visual artist Pedro Maia, whose signature “flickering” visuals draw viewers into a mysterious, unexplored space. Maia’s visuals blend contemporary and classical elements, challenging traditional film processes while expanding the visual and technological legacy of analog film. By manipulating raw materials, Maia pushes the boundaries of analog media, creating immersive, large-scale displays of vibrant color fields and swirling, ever-changing patterns. His dynamic visuals transform the stage, creating an experience that redefines the materiality and form of analog and live mediums.