Lecturers
The lecturers at the Folkwang Institute for Pop Music are nationally and internationally renowned composers, producers and performers boasting relevant expertise in their respective areas of pop. All lecturers are closely involved in supervising the students’ projects, and are in regular intensive contact with each other. Project content is supervised in a co-ordinated manner, enabling the students to adopt a holistic approach to their work at all times, and pay equal heed to the various ideas and aspects.
The lecturers also work with the teaching staff from other disciplines at the Folkwang University of the Arts to facilitate sophisticated multi and cross-media projects for the students.
Jules Reidy
Instrumentale Praxis / Ensemblepraxis + Instrumentation / Arrangement
Jules Reidy makes song cycles which abstractly deal with devotional love, transcendence and death of the self. They use materials such as guitars, voice, percussion and found sounds, deconstructing and augmenting them through non-standard tuning systems, polyrhythmic structures, electronic processing and spatialisation. They aim to express and invoke states of uncanniness, dissociation, dys/euphoria, imagination and void.They’ve released on Thrill Jockey, Black Truffle, Shelter Press, Editions Mego and Longform Editions.
Their current collaborations include projects with Sun Kit (shoegazey pop), Judith Hamann (deconstructed karaoke “songs”), Morten Joh (re-tuned guitar + vibraphone through analogue tape delays), Sam Dunscombe (psychedelic environments made of synthesis, clarinets and guitars) , Andrea Belfi (post-rock jam duo) and Ivan Cheng (sincere, maudlin, twee, fabulous). They have written for ensembles such as Zinc & Copper (DE), the Australian Art Orchestra (AUS), Splitter Orchester (DE), the Pitch (DE), and are currently writing for JACK Quartet (USA).
They are originally from Australia, and are currently based in Berlin.
They host Local Heroes on Cashmere Radio, a bi-monthly show which features Berlin-based artists presenting and discussing their work. They run a regular karaoke series at anorak e.V. which riffs on poetics of memory, dedicated amateurism and entanglement with failure.
Yağmur Uçkunkaya
Video & Animation + Musik und Medien
Yağmur Uçkunkaya works with AI and interdisciplinary creative practices to investigate their intersections and societal implications. She studied Medieninformatik at TU Berlin and FU Berlin, working during and after her studies at a creative AI agency where she contributed to projects integrating contemporary AI technologies into experimental collaborations. These spanned from developing anarchic vocal instruments to contributing to intelligent irrigation prediction systems for Berlin’s urban trees. Shifting focus to research, she pursued a Master’s in Design and Computation at UdK Berlin and TU Berlin, critically exploring AI imaginaries—specifically, how artistic interventions can expose and reshape narratives embedded within and surrounding AI systems. Her recent work in this area has been featured at the Ars Electronica Festival and Frankfurt Biennale.
(Photo: AI-Panorama by Yağmur Uçkunkaya)
Bruno Gola
Sound & Effekt + Instrumentale Praxis
Bruno Gola is a Brazilian artist, hacker, programmer and computer musician based in Berlin. He studied Computer Science and worked as system admin and programmer for many years before shifting his research to Art and Media, focusing on artistic output. His practice is built around developing DIY open source systems for live audio-visual improvisation and interactive installations, playing around concepts of agency, interaction and liveness and including elements of live coding, free improvisation and live electronics. Apart from making his own instruments and software, he develops tools for other artists and regularly collaborates with code for open source projects. Since 2023 he works as assistant professor in the Generative Kunst / Computational Arts class at the Berlin University of the Arts with Prof. Alberto de Campo.
(Photo: Bruno Gola)
Benedikt Brachtel
Instrumentation / Arrangement +
Film-, Bühnen-, Medienmusik
Beni Brachtel has been working as a freelance composer, sound artist and music producer since 2010 and lives with his family in Munich. Since then, he has composed around 40 stage scores for the Münchner Kammerspiele, Schauspiel Basel, Maxim Gorki-Theater Berlin, Berliner Ensemble, Schauspiel Köln, Schauspiel Graz, among others. He has worked with Ersan Mondtag, Alexander Eisenach, Jessica Glause and Tobias Staab, among others.
In 2024, Brachtel composed an orchestral suite for the German Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale and recorded it with the Munich Symphony Orchestra. In October 2024, his commissioned music theater composition “Toto – Vielen Dank für das Leben”, libretto: Sibylle Berg, celebrated its premiere at the Vienna Burgtheater.
Since 2018, Brachtel has realized four commissioned compositions for Schauspiel Köln (director: Ersan Mondtag), numerous music productions in his own recording studio in Munich, as well as four composition commissions from the Bavarian State Opera, three of which he also premiered as conductor.
As an electronic live act and DJ, Brachtel has performed in Tokyo, Bucharest, St. Petersburg, Moscow, London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
(Photo: private)
Christian Kalinowski aka NUMINOS
Sound & Effekt
Numinos teaches the ‘Production technique(s), sound and effects’ seminar. As a producer, live artist, DJ, mastering engineer, equipment tester and author of various publications (incl. Groove, Bonedo, Kopfhoerer.de), he can look back on nearly thirty-five years of technological and stylistic developments, and has in-depth knowledge of every stage of the production process.
His teaching approach primarily aims to give students a holistic perspective of the entire technical, artistic and sound creation process. Because successful production is not determined by the right or wrong choice of equaliser or compressor. Indeed formally ‘correct’ equipment parameter settings (whether virtual or hardware) may still be wrong, if the wrong settings sound ‘right’. Christian Kalinowski is driven by his desire to convey and encourage the necessary enthusiasm for experimentation and self-confidence in assessment abilities.
Michael Akstaller
Michael Akstaller deals with flow research, (hydro)acoustics, and acoustic research as well as the relationships between sound and space, movement and performance. His scientific, artistic, and curatorial practice is often interdisciplinary and collaborative and has been shown at Silent Green, Berlin (2023), Lenbachhaus Munich (2022, 2021), Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2022, 2021), the 6th Ural Industrial Biennale, Ekaterinburg (2021), and HKW Berlin (2021), among others. 2024, he represented the german pavillon in venice bienial as one of six artists framed in the curatorial project “thresholds” by Çağla ilk. Akstaller has worked at scientific institutions such as the Federal Institute for Hydraulic Engineering in Karlsruhe, Folkwang Universität der Künste, and the Federal Institute of Hydrology in Koblenz.
(Photo: Callies)
Patricia Reed
Musik und Text + Musik und Medien
Patricia Reed is a theorist, artist and designer based in Berlin. She is Co-Head of the Critical Inquiry Lab (MA) at the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL) and lectures widely at additional cultural and educational institutions. Her work addresses the relationships between models and practices of inhabitation within planetary frameworks of thought, via theory, technology studies, as well as art and design. Recent writings have been published in Informatics of Domination, Pierre Huyghe: Liminal; Navigation beyond Vision, Ceremony: Burial of an Undead World, KI-Realitäten: Modelle, Praktiken und Topologien maschinellen Lernens, Model is the Message, Space Synthesis, Construction Site for Possible Worlds, The New Normal, and e-flux Journal. Reed was an affiliate researcher for the Antikythera program in 2023, and co-wrote the Xenofeminist Manifesto as Laboria Cuboniks, republished by Verso Books. She was awarded a grant from the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam for her research Figuring Planetary Space and is currently preparing a monograph based on this work. Further info at: aestheticmanagement.com
(Photo: Spectrogram of last recording of the Kauai Oo bird in Hawai’i before it went extinct, captured in 1987.)
Philipp Janzen
Instrumentale Praxis / Ensemblepraxis + Instrumentation / Arrangement
Jan Philipp Janzen is a member of the bands VON SPAR, Die Sterne and Urlaub in Polen and publishes solo projects under the name of Dumbo Tracks.
He has offered (and still continues to offer) his drumming skills to bands such as Die Sterne, The Field, Owen Pallett and Scout Niblett, and has produced recordings of artists such as R. Stevie Moore, The Field, die Sterne, Andreya Casablanca, Stephen Malkmus, Luis Ake, Coma und Robocop Kraus at his own Dumbo Studios. He has composed soundtracks (e.g. Capital B. Wem gehört Berlin), and has worked for record label Tomlab and the c/o pop music festival. He teaches pop-music production at the Folkwang Institute for Pop Music in Bochum.
(Photo: private)
Dr. Katharina Hausladen
Musik und Medien + Musik und Text
Katharina Hausladen is an art and cultural scholar and freelance critic. From March 2020 to June 2022, she was editor-in-chief of “Texte zur Kunst”. Her research interests include: Cultural studies, feminist theories, the theories and practices of critique, and art theories specialising in pop music, fine arts and film. She has lectured at the likes of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, the University of Vienna and the University of Hildesheim.
Since summer 2023, Dr. Katharina Hausladen teaches the modules “Music & Media” as well as “Trends & Society” at the institute.
(Photo: private)
Henrik von Holtum aka Textor
Musik und Text
As the MC of Kinderzimmer Productions, Henrik von Holtum was one of the pioneers of bringing flow to the German hip-hop. He is a classically trained double-bass player and has written for publications such as Zeit, Spex and Juice. He also creates radio features for stations that include SWR, Deutschlandfunk and RBB. As a rapper, singer and bass player, his collaborations have ranged from the acoustic duo Textor & Renz to the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and from small punk-rock warehouses to the main stage at festivals. He teaches lyric-writing at the Folkwang Institute for Pop Music.
Verena Maas
Video & Animation
Verena Maas is a film-maker and producer. After stints abroad in London and New York, she completed her studies in Audiovisual Media at Cologne’s Academy of Media Arts in 2009, before working for publishing houses Walther König and TASCHEN in Cologne. In 2015, she teamed up with André Sauer and Tim Grothaus to establish The Cologne Art Book Fair, an art book fair for self-publishers. That same year, she also began working as a freelance director, camerawoman and editor, and has created hundreds of predominantly short-form films and music videos since. Her films are almost always focused on the notion of dealing with the public sphere. Urban spaces, pop culture and change-making also serve as the basis for her company tvist GmbH, which she founded with Sebastian Züger in 2020. Her business idea saw the pair awarded the Gründerstipendium NRW scholarship and the Mediengründerzentrum NRW scholarship.
Since 2020, Verena Maas has been a lecturer in ‘Media production for NGOs’ and ‘Learning through engagement’ at the University of Cologne’s Professional Centre.
She has also been teaching the ‘Video & animation’ module at the Institute for Pop Music at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Bochum since the 2023 winter semester. Her areas of specialisation are the artistic and technical foundations of video production, imagery and media awareness, performance, DIY & low-budget video.
(Photo: Patrick Essex)
Richard Ojijo
Sound & Effekt
Richard Ojijo lives and works in Cologne. He spent the 1990s either in relevant Cologne clubs such as Warehouse, Iz and Studio 672 or getting acquainted with the endless world of electronic music with likeminded new producers such as Boris Bontempi, Heiko Voss and Alexander Geiger. Since the late ‘90s, Richard Ojijo has worked as a live engineering for musicians including Joy Denalane, Freundeskreis, Moderat, GAS, 0neohtrix Point Never, Max Herre, Modeselektor, Apparat, Roosevelt and many more. There are no genres he’s afraid to explore – from techno and urban, to reggae and dub, to soul, he finds it all enticing. As a studio and recording engineer, his clients have included the likes of Cody ChesnuTT, Selah Sue, Samy Deluxe and Patrice.
Richard Ojijo composes and creates soundtracks to the politically charged videos of Cologne artist Marcel Odenbach, which are exhibited at museums around the world.
He has been teaching the ‘Sound & Effects’ module at the Institute for Pop Music at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Bochum since 2015, where he provides insights into new soundscapes.
