Eduard Berens works with experimental electronic music, sound art, ambient, noise, industrial and improvisation. His practice explores sound as a material process: dripping wax, melting ice, breathing, field recordings, contact microphones, analog synthesis and voice become the basis for sonic structures and live compositions.
SOUND ART AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC
TECHNOLOGICAL AND MEDIA ART
RESEARCH, PEDAGOGY AND COMMUNITY
Berens creates new forms of performance through gesture-based interfaces and sound control. His device Quray transforms hand movements into sound and light, turning the space around the performer into an instrument. His works often combine technology, sculpture, stage presence and live sound, where the body becomes part of the musical system.
RITUAL, HERITAGE AND FIELD RESEARCH
A central direction of his practice is the exploration of Bashkir sound heritage. Through studying kubyz performance with traditional players in Bashkir villages, making field recordings in the Ural Mountains and caves, and working with instruments such as kubyz and kurai, Berens investigates how traditional sound can exist today without becoming a museum object or folklore decoration.
Berens is the founder of Ray State, a platform for artists, musicians, engineers and media creators in Tbilisi. Through Ray State and Wednoisea, he develops experimental music events, audiovisual performances, workshops and community-based cultural projects dedicated to sound, media art, performance and new artistic tools.
Main Directions
Key Projects
Developed together with engineer Andrey Strokov, Quray Air — a performative spatial instrument that turns the space around the performer into a playable ritual field, where hand movements shape sound and light in real time.
For Berens, Quray is not only a technological device, but a continuation of his research into gesture, body and ritual presence. It turns the invisible space around the performer into a playable field, allowing movement to shape sound and light in real time.
Quray was presented at Superbooth in Berlin for two consecutive years, in 2025 and 2026, where Berens tested how a performative spatial instrument can work in a live performance context.
For Berens, Quray is not only a technological device, but a continuation of his research into gesture, body and ritual presence. It turns the invisible space around the performer into a playable field, allowing movement to shape sound and light in real time.
Quray was presented at Superbooth in Berlin for two consecutive years, in 2025 and 2026, where Berens tested how a performative spatial instrument can work in a live performance context.
Quray Air
Tbilisi, 2024
This live performance brings together the Bashkir kubyz and Quray, a performative spatial instrument developed by Eduard Berens with engineer Andrey Strokov.
In Bashkir culture, the kubyz is connected with vibration, breath, storytelling and altered states; in legends, it often appears as a bridge between the earthly and the spiritual. Its metallic resonance becomes the ritual root of the performance — a voice that comes from the body, the mouth and the earth.
Quray extends this vibration into space, allowing hand movements to shape electronic sound and light in real time. The work explores how an ancestral instrument can enter a contemporary ritual context without becoming folklore or decoration. Through kubyz, gesture, analog synthesis and live processing, Berens creates a performance where body, movement, sound and light become one shared ritual field.
In Bashkir culture, the kubyz is connected with vibration, breath, storytelling and altered states; in legends, it often appears as a bridge between the earthly and the spiritual. Its metallic resonance becomes the ritual root of the performance — a voice that comes from the body, the mouth and the earth.
Quray extends this vibration into space, allowing hand movements to shape electronic sound and light in real time. The work explores how an ancestral instrument can enter a contemporary ritual context without becoming folklore or decoration. Through kubyz, gesture, analog synthesis and live processing, Berens creates a performance where body, movement, sound and light become one shared ritual field.
Ritual of Sound
Live performance, Tbilisi, 2025
This live performance begins with a Tibetan singing bowl, creating a meditative vibration and a ritual opening for the piece. From this acoustic resonance, Berens gradually moves into Quray, his performative spatial instrument, using hand movements in the air to shape sound in real time.
The performance also includes guitar, synthesizers and live electronic processing, building a sonic space between drone, gesture, improvisation and physical presence.
The work explores how sound can move from object to body, from vibration to gesture, and from ritual action to electronic composition. Quray becomes a way to extend the performer’s body into space, turning movement into a musical and visual force.
The performance also includes guitar, synthesizers and live electronic processing, building a sonic space between drone, gesture, improvisation and physical presence.
The work explores how sound can move from object to body, from vibration to gesture, and from ritual action to electronic composition. Quray becomes a way to extend the performer’s body into space, turning movement into a musical and visual force.
From Vibration
to Gesture
to Gesture
Wednoisea, Tbilisi, 2024
Drops is a live audiovisual performance built around a simple repetitive action: dripping wax onto a canvas. The sound of each drop was captured by a piezo microphone and became a natural pulse for the composition. Gradually, synthesizers, guitar, jaw harp and electronics layered onto this rhythm, turning a physical process into a sonic ritual.
The work connects painting, sound, gesture and time, allowing the audience to witness how material action becomes an audiovisual flow.
The work connects painting, sound, gesture and time, allowing the audience to witness how material action becomes 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.
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
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