CTM Festival collaborates with the Outernational Days in Bucharest to present "Everything Visible Is Empty", a new live project by Rabih Beaini in collaboration with Mazen Kerbaj, Raed Yassin, Diana Miron and Bogdana Dima.

Following an unexplored cultural path, the concert, that takes place on July 8 at The Ark, will highlight an unpredictable confrontation of artistic forces between some of the most forward-thinking contemporary musicians from Beirut and Bucharest.

"Everything Visible Is Empty" continues the artistic search and methodology first explored by Beaini in his project "For The Red Right Hand", which he composed for and performed at CTM Festival 2016 together with Liz Allbee, Mazen Kerbaj, Sam Shalabi, Sharif Sehnaoui, Daniele De Santis, Tommaso Cappellato, Sofia Jernberg, and Rully Shabara. Both pieces are meant to be sonic reflections on the current political and social tensions, and the disrupting potential of technology. Operating from a central power position – the mixing desk –  Beaini organizes an ensemble of instrumentalists via a multi-channel speaker setup into opposing and conflicting counterpoints, tensions and uneasy coexistence, making the pieces allegories of personal conflict and social tension, and musical explorations of the need to balance motives of trust, communal spirit and individualism, power and control, that underlie all human relations. The experience is dynamic and immersive, at times violently chaotic, at times unsettlingly beautiful, and of a fragile and deeply moving emotionality.

Lebanese-born musician and DJ Rabih Beaini joins the dots between raw, elementary electronica, and jazz. Beaini’s genuine musical ability and a range of influences — from krautrock to new wave — seep into his inventive, dark, and emotional productions and immersive DJ sets. With his Morphine label, he has telescoped in on key (and often overlooked) voices in avant-garde electronic and outernational music. A longtime CTM Festival collaborator, Beaini served as guest curator for its 2016 edition.

Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese writer, illustrator and musician who has helped break new ground in Beirut's free improvisation and experimental music scenes. He is also one of the organizers of Irtijal Festival, the main annual event for new and innovative music in the Lebanese artistic scene, rightly considered as the largest structure of its kind in the Arab world.

Raed Yassin is a Lebanese artist and musician. Yassin's work often originates from an examination of his personal narratives and their workings within a collective history, through the lens of consumer culture and mass production. He has exhibited and performed his work in numerous museums, festivals and venues across Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Japan,Yassin was awarded the Fidus Prize (2009), the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2012), the AFAC grant for production (2010), the YATF grant for production (2008 & 2012) and the Cultural Resource grant for production (2008). He is also one of the organizers of Irtijal Festival, and has released several music albums and founded the production company Annihaya in 2009. He is also a founding member of Atfal Ahdath, a Beirut based art collective. Since 2006, Raed is, alongside Swiss musician Paed Conca, member of the duo Praed, a band whose musical oeuvre can be described as a mixture of Arabic popular music, free jazz, and electronics.

Bogdana Dima performed in numerous concerts as a pianist, accordionist, percussionist, choir-singer, contemporary ensemble conductor. Since 2015 she is pianist and accordionist in PFA Orchestra, a working group for para-academic and independent research in music. Bogdana played alongside musicians such as Iancu Dumitrescu, Maja Osojnik, Andrei Kivu, Mia Zabelka, Franz Hautzinger, Isabelle Duthoit and more.

Diana Miron is a young Romanian artist with a long classical/contemporary music background. Her interest for the visual arts and media variety appears naturally as an extension from reverberations of the social and political context she grew up in, contouring the desire of liberation from stylistic barriers, translated through sound exploration, (solo/collective) improvisation and performance. Diana tours frequently alongside Iancu Dumitrescu's widely acclaimed Hyperion Ensemble and is also a part of PFA Orchestraand And Then This.

The Outernational Days are a 3-day festival dedicated to musical voices from the periphery beyond the established hotspots of contemporary pop and avant-garde music. Organized in the second year by The Attic, the festival takes place in Bucharest between July 7-9, 2017. It presents a wide-ranging suite of ensembles, bands and musicians, including Turkish artists insanlar and Görkem Sen, Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force, Les Filles de Illighadad from Niger, Ogoya Nengo & The Dodo Women's Group from Kenya, Romanian multi-instrumentalist Mircea Florian and many more.