playin’ is an ongoing music and video project by visual artists Klaus Killisch (Berlin) and Mikael Eriksson (Stockholm).

The collaboration began in the mid-1990s as an extension of their work in visual art—a space for experimenting with sound, image, performance, and improvisation. Rather than separating music and visual practice, playin’ brings them together in concerts, recordings, videos, and installations.

Since their first session in Stockholm in 1994, Killisch and Eriksson have worked with changing constellations of musicians, writers, performers, and artists. Improvisation, repetition, found material, and the interaction between sound and moving image are recurring elements of the project.

The term ambient funk, used for early playin’ concerts and recordings in the late 1990s, later became the name of Klaus Killisch’s solo music project ambientfunk. Since 2015, ambientfunk has developed alongside playin’ as a related but independent practice, extending Killisch’s experiments with electric guitar, electronics, rhythm, voice, and collaborative work with writers and musicians.

Over the years, playin’ has moved between clubs, galleries, museums, studios, and self-produced releases. The project remains deliberately open: less a fixed band than an evolving framework for collaborative experiments in music and image.

Selected Projects & Releases

2022 – PAINTING ’ & PLAYIN’ #2, released on Bandcamp

2021 – IN THE YEAR OF TWENTY-ONE

2019 – PAINTING ’ & PLAYIN’ #2, Weltecho, Chemnitz

2013 – Ring of Fire, session recordings @ Studio MG (Berlin), with Claudia Kühn, Marc Gröszer, Kristian Lövgren

2012 – Pandora Motel @ Apokalypse & Utopie, Galerie Pankow (Berlin), video program curated by Olaf Stüber, catalogue

2011 – DIY radiation head, video projection @ Halleluhwah! Hommage à CAN, Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), featuring Nastasja Keller, catalogue

2011 – DIY radiation head, video projection @ Halleluhwah! Hommage à CAN, ABT ART Gallery (Stuttgart), featuring Nastasja Keller, catalogue

2009 – Pandora Motel, video projection @ Volksbühne (Berlin)

2009 – Pandora Motel, video projection and live performance @ Museum Junge Kunst (Frankfurt/Oder)

2004 – paintin’ & playin’, concert @ ambulance (Berlin), visuals by Sangare Siemsen & Mikael Eriksson, featuring Jana Weiz, Tania Segas, Jens Lohwieser, DJ

2003 – paintin’ & playin’, concert @ Kunsthalle Rostock, visuals by Sangare Siemsen & Mikael Eriksson, featuring Jana Weiz

1999 – playin’ sergant pepper lounge, concert @ Gallery PingPong (Malmö) featuring Tania Segas

1999 – Sgt Pepper Lounge, released on CD and Bandcamp

1999 – playin’, concert @ Esloev Art Festival (Sweden) featuring Robert Fitterman

1999 – playin’ ambient funk, concert @ exhibition opening Rosa Loy, VEAG (Berlin)

1998 – playin’ ambient funk, concert and record release @ Silberstein (Berlin) featuring Robert Fitterman, Didier Lopez

1998 – playin’ ambient funk, released on CD and Bandcamp

1998 – playin’ ambient funk, concert @ VOXXX (Chemnitz), featuring Carsten Nicolai, Didier Leboz

1994 – Davis-Hendrix-Session (Stockholm), with Olle Nyström

Editorial text & editing — Parallel Text
Klaus Killisch × Vell