creator
musician
artist
person
Eduard
Berens
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Eduard Berens is a media artist and musician working at the intersection of painting, sound, and video. His practice is based on improvisation and engagement with processes that cannot be fully predicted: the fall of a drop, the rhythm of breathing, the play of light and shadow. These processes become the foundation for sonic and visual structures, while the performance itself turns into a space of presence, drawing the audience into the experience of the moment.

A significant part of his work is dedicated to exploring personal origins. Through working with the kubyz (jaw harp) and field recordings made in the caves of the Ural Mountains, Berens investigates memory and identity. The droning, meditative sound, resonant with the natural reverberation of the mountains, becomes material for new artistic forms, opening tradition as a living field for transformation and contemporary reinterpretation.

Together with engineer Andrey Strokov, Berens developed the contactless MIDI controller Quray Air Midi. Its name refers to the kurai, a Turkic wind instrument, while the body — shaped like a magical stone — evokes the Shikhans, the sacred mountains of Bashkiria. Quray extends Berens’s artistic practice: more than a technological device, it is an instrument that transforms gesture and movement into sound and light, linking ancestral roots with the future.
Eduard Berens, combining ambient, noise, industrial, and improvisation. His practice includes transforming natural processes (wax, ice, water) into sonic textures and using modular synthesis, analog gear, and voice. Each painting or performance becomes a composition, where sound and image evolve together in real time.
SOUND ART AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC
TECHNOLOGICAL AND MEDIA ART
Research and pedagogy
Creates new forms of performance through gesture-based interfaces and sound control. His device Quray transforms hand movements into sound and light, turning live shows into immersive experiences. His works often combine technology, sculpture, and stage presence, where instruments become part of a performative dialogue.
Founder of Ray State, a platform for artists, engineers, and media creators. Develops educational programs, workshops, and residencies dedicated to sound, media, and performance. His work aims to make advanced technologies accessible, while fostering community, collaboration, and the creation of new artistic tools
Main Directions
Key Projects
Developed together with engineer Andrey Strokov, Quray Air is a contactless controller that transforms gestures into sound and light. The device enables musicians and media artists to control synthesizers, lighting, and multimedia with hand movements, creating a sense of magic on stage. Quray was presented at Superbooth 2025 in Berlin and received highly positive feedback from musicians, engineers, and media artists.
Quray Air
Wednoisea, Tbilisi, 2024
This performance was built around a simple yet meditative process — dripping wax onto a canvas. The sound of each drop was captured by a piezo microphone and became a natural metronome, forming the rhythmic basis of the composition. Gradually, synthesizers, guitar, and jaw harp layered onto this pulse, expanding the sonic texture.

Simultaneously, the process was projected onto a screen, and at the end the camera slowly moved across the finished painting, documenting the fusion of image and sound. For the audience, Drops was an experience of witnessing a material process transformed into an audiovisual flow.
Drops
Pareidoliae live performances at festival Human 2024.
At the core of this work lies a painting filled with shapes and figures that emerge through the effect of pareidolia. Each viewer perceives something different, making the act of seeing inherently personal. The video work by Talgat Safarov animated hidden lines and forms within the painting, while Berens performed a live improvised sound set in dialogue with the image. Rather than illustrating the visuals, the music traced its own path, turning Pareidolia into an exploration of perception — where sound and image unfold as parallel streams that converge only in the imagination of the audience.
Pareidolia
Tbilisi, 2024
The first public presentation of the contactless MIDI controller Quray. Unlike conventional performance, here sound was generated not through strings or keys but through hand movements in the air. For the audience, it appeared as a kind of magical act: invisible gestures producing sound.

A central element was interactivity — visitors were invited to try the instrument themselves, blurring the line between performer and spectator. As a result, Performance Touch became not only a demonstration of a new tool but also a collective experiment in rethinking how technology can reshape the space of performance and participation.
Touch
contacts
Eduard Berens
For collaborations, performances, and inquiries,
please contact:

Mail: eduardberens@gmail.com
instagram: @edberens
Youtube: @eduardberens