Grand Hotel Establishment 2017/18
[Vocal Performer, Live-Electronics, Tapes, Sensor-equipped Items and Video]
Commissioned by Deutschlandfunk, premiered within the festival Forum neuer Musik 2018 in Cologne.
The piece GRAND HOTEL ESTABLISHMENT retrospects the young generation of ’68, a movement between protests, philosophical imaginative cinemas in young student’s heads, post-adolescent wrong tracks and radical left-winged helplessness. Further it draws connections to contemporary relevant political topics of today’s society. Not only grown out of the ecstasy of liberation, but also with the heritage of the Third Reich of their parent’s generation, the movement of ‘68 tried to demolish the encrusted structures of a conservative society. The piece questions sustainability of their influences on the current political and social situation, because the so called „long march through the institutions“ seems to have transferred the majority of 68- followers directly in the opportunistic luxury suite of the GRAND HOTEL ESTABLISHMENT.
(photo credits: Thomas Kujawinski)
text excerpt:
„Aus dem Gefühl autoritarer Bevormundung gründeten wir den Wanderzirkus Revolution! (…) Wir gingen Ostern feiern mit Mollis und Steinen beim massenmedialen Henker und kokelten Kaufhauser an in der Stadt der Dichter und Bänker.
(…) Wer von uns weiß noch, welchen Weg er geht auf der Straße 68? – Schlafen für den Frieden? Frieden und Freiheit!
Die Freiheit, Freiheit als kommerzialisierte Selbstausbeutung zu konsumieren. Die Freiheit, Emotionen als Rohstoffe öffentlicher Entinnerlichung zu publizieren. Die Freiheit, den tatsachlichen Feind, das Selbst, als versklavtes Leistungssubjekt zu ignorieren. Denn: In uns selbst sitzt heute die Herrschaftsinstanz. In der Luxus-Suite des Grand Hotel Establishment“
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Marlene Quartett 2017/18
[Electric Guitar, String Trio and Electronics]
Marlene Quartett is part of the piece „La Rinascita di Marlene“, commissioned by Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste Munich. Premiered by Johannes Öllinger and Trio Coriolis @ Münchner Residenz.
text excerpt:
„Kunst als Sabotage am Leben? Kunst muss unter die Haut gehen. Kunst als Selbstausdruck zur Weltverbesserung? Kunst ist blutiger Ernst. Für das Kunstwerk leiden als existenzielle Grenzüberschreitung? (Darf man sich beim Selbstfinden auch mal verlieren?) Kunst ist nicht verklärt. Kunst aus subjektiver Überheblichkeit und Anmaßung? Kunst ist nicht lustig. Kunst als dekonstruktive Ökologie des Geistes? Kunst ist revolutionäre Energie. Kunst als wertvolle Entäußerung des Schöngeistes? Kunst ist…jeden Tag und März: Zertrümmerung von Assoziationsmustern.“
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Baby Spin to Superman Reverse Variation 2017
[MIDI toy piano and electronics]
Commissioned by non piano / toy piano weekend. Premiered by Bernhard Fograscher at resonanzraum hamburg
The Baby Spin to Superman Reverse Variation is a combination of two common Pole Dance moves: The Baby Spin and the Superman. In terms of a musical equivalent to this, the composition Baby Spin to Superman Reverse Variation for the Schoenhut Digital Butterfly MIDI Toy Piano and electronics explores different conditions of tone colour conflations. Appearing as an ordinary toy piano, the Pink Butterfly initially fulfills the usual auditory expectations the audience might have. But during the further process of structural developments the toy piano sound starts spinning around: Corresponding to principles of electronic sound synthesis, the instrument expands the variety of tone colours, merging into hybrid timbres like for instance the toy piano – harpsichord combination or the harpsichord – 8 bit synthesizer combination. Therefore especially those tone colours are mixed up, that consist of similar sound characteristics, like the rather percussive sound character well known from the toy piano and the harpsichord. In contrast to this, the use of a pure piano sound is a reference to the visual appearance of the instrument, looking like a miniature version of a grand piano, only varying in the colour, pink instead of black. The composition is constructed of pentatonic scales and rhythmical patterns as used in traditional Hungarian music. Those are extended through a quotation of a theme tune from a famous superhero movie. Fragments of tutorial instructions are supervising the pianist while trying to cope with the acrobatic challenge of musical translations of the Baby Spin to Superman Reverse Variation.
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The Counting Sisters 2017
[voice, live-electronics, video, performance]
„The Counting Sisters“ is a further development of a section within the 60-minutes full-lenght piece „C:\dialogue\towards_between.mxo“, commissioned by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts Singapore, on the occasion of the exhibition „The Sovereign Forest“ by Amar Kanwar.
The performance on stage is on the one hand an allegory for a ritual of „counting the dead“ as explained in the story of The Counting Sisters written by Amar Kanwar, where six women (in an act of political resistance) collect information around people who recently died due to political „issues“. On the other hand it is the translation of a general phenomenon of digital interconnection: The more information we receive,
the less we notice. Or to express it differently: The more we see, the less we see. Every day our online newspapers and social media timelines are covered with a vast amount of latest news, videos, pictures,
blog posts and comments about 100.000 dead of yesterday, 235.000 of today and a forecast for tomorrow. The dead disappear behind mere numbers. An incident becomes more grave as more dead are counted.
The individual becomes insignificant.
The voice and the resonating body form the nucleus of all sound and stand in interactive correspondence with a real time sound modulating Max patch. Furthermore the performer’s body functions as a projection surface for the visual translation of text immanent processes. Movements extend from raw performative expressions to a tool of interaction between the performer and the computer.
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C:\dialogue\towards_between.mxo 2016
[voice, live-electronics, fixed media piece, multi-channel]
The piece was staged within the exhibition „The Sovereign Forest“ by Amar Kanwar @ NTU Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore 2016.
The total duration of the piece is 60 minutes. It is a mixture of real time 6-channel sound installations and sections with a live vocal performance. The audience is situated in a space where the border between stage and auditorium is abolished. There is only little illumination. The loudspeakers as well as the performer are not visible. Only certain parts that include a live improvisation with light bulbs and light sensors require the appearance of the performer. The piece is inspired by the book of folk tales called „The Counting Sisters and Other Stories“ written by Amar Kanwar, that tells the stories of a small act of resistance by a group of 7 women who carry out a ritual of remembrance while, around them, state and local politicians and corporations collude to rewrite the legal documents that define the ownership and status of their village.
Considered as a multi-layered dialogue, the piece is a musical translation using the human voice in combination with live electronic sound extensions and spatial sound movements. The performance aimed to stay in a constant dialogue with the exhibition.
Short teaser (2.20 minutes):
Listen to a 25-minutes excerpt: click on LINK.
Excerpt from „The Counting Sisters and Other Stories“ by Amar Kanwar:
„There are six women who work together and one woman who works in her own. The six call themselves „The Counting Sisters“. (…) The Counting Sisters keep a track of every person killed or disappeared. They keep a track of every name, address, date, and photograph. (…) One day, early in the morning, the police arrested The Counting Sisters.
Is it a crime to mourn the dead?
Is it a Crime to count the disappeared?
The Counting Sisters began to sing.
They first sang about the sorrow of The One Alone (…) and about the daily life of the people of Odisha.
(…) listening and weeping and waiting for The Counting Sisters to be free again.“
information about the peformance: CLICK HERE.
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If You Liked My Posts I Wouldn’t Need To Express Myself In Real Life 2014
[for voice, live-electronics, tape, cling film & performance]
The performance was premiered @ International Summer Courses for New Music Darmstadt, 2014
The contextualisation of material leads to an interference of aesthetic perception: Brian’s beats form a symbiosis with musical quotations of Helmut and 1980ies porn-music, while Wolfgang’s harmony gets a glossy make over courtesy of DJ Bobo. The performance is a metaphor for the overwhelming flow of information that we are exposed in everyday life. The text consists of Facebook posts pulled from various discourses about the “Alltags” aesthetic movement in German contemporary music.
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Give it to me Engine, Honey! 2016
[for voice and live-electronics]
The piece was premiered @ Basis Zwei Festival Hanover, 2016
Concentrating on the challenges and opportunities of musical interaction between a singer and a laptop, the piece „Give it to me Engine, Honey!“ shows a relationship between these two (unequal) partners on stage. The computer can react on audio-input in real-time, but only within the limitations of defined command patterns, whereas the singer has access to an unlimited amount of decisions according to her creativity and vocal ability. The live-electronics are written in Max 7. The goal was to write a complex patch that contains as many different decision paths as it needs to challenge the singer (who was at the same time the developer of the patch) within an interactive sound environment. The first half consists of a composed vocal part in which the laptop is only sometimes intervening in terms of two gates that if opened add two different delay effects to the voice, the second is an improvisation with the laptop in the role of an interacting partner on stage. The Max-patch operates with in each case three variations of ring modulation, granular synthesis, filtering (comb filter), a vocoder and delays triggered by different random patterns. The piece features a very basic stage setting. There is just the singer and the laptop „facing each other“.
Recording of the premiere performance (video by Tosh Leykum):
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cozy new gastfeindlichkeit 2016
[fixed media piece]
The piece was released on the new CD of the Edition DEGEM, that focuses on the topic of „escape“. The CD was presented within the Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC) in Hamburg, 2016.
The piece “cozy new gastfeindlichkeit“ consists of semantically decomposed speech of people telling their stories of escape. Through different methods of sound modulation, the vocal material was changed into a sound wise abstract form. The complete sound material is extracted from vocal sounds. Displaced people tell the stories of their life before their escape, the stories of their escape and the stories of their arrival. But it’s quite obvious, that the stories don’t come to an end after the arrival.
Not only the emotionality of the escape resonates in their voices, but also the new experiences and impressions at the place of their arrival.
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linden keyboard orchestra reloaded 2016
[for 1 performer, 2 toy keyboards, 1 MIDI keyboard and live electronics in Max 7]
The performance was premiered @ Non Piano / Toy Piano Festival in Hamburg, 2016.
This piece comes from the bottom of the heart of Lambada Avantgarde.
A comment on the performance practice of electronic music. A reflexion on a young avant garde movement in contemporary classical music with the irresistible urge for quoted pop music. A tribute to the sound aesthetics of toy keyboards from children’s rooms of the early 1990s. An extension of the sound wise typical low-tech environment of such instruments through real-time sound synthesis. Rhythmical patterns of synthetic low-tech percussion sounds as a counterpoint to atonal trash melodies.
Lyrics inspired by a German comedy sketch from 1991 and a song from 1974 by a famous German electronic pop music band.
The piece is dedicated to my dear colleagues and friends Kostia Rapoport and Alex Hofmann.
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antizyʞlisch.momente_von_sinn(un-[d])freiheit.anti.trashɔore.milch. 2015/16
[audio-visual performance for voice, live-electronics, fixed media and videos]
The performance was premiered @ museum for contemporary art in Siegen, commissioned by the University of Siegen, as part of the congress „Komplexe Referenzen. Sampling als Kulturtechnik„, 2016
The performance deals with different aspects of sampling in the field of music and visual art. Furthermore it includes a strong connection to DADA art. Aesthetically it’s located at the border of Understatement and Anti-Art, creating new contexts and levels of meaning by combining visuals, music and lyrics that do not fit together at first sight. The piece consists of 10 short movements named as „anti-illusion“, „Lambada I“, „schöne_worte“, „Lambada II“, „G***-Mär“, „Realität ist da wo der Pizzamann herkommt“, „Lambada III“, „Brainwash“, „Sample Unser“, „Epilog“. The complete piece has a total duration of 50 minutes.
excerpt version:
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Soundscape PRISON WALK 2016
[Audio Guide Performance Project within the facilities of Klapperfeld Frankfurt]
As a former police prison that was in use between 1886 and 2002, Klapperfeld is a culmination point of social circumstances and changing definitions of justice and forms of appropriate and humane treatment within the imprisonment.
Since 2009 the facilities are revitalized by the group Faites votre jeu!, that actively tries to explore the complex history of this place.
Since the performance is staged in the original facilities of the prison, that partially remained in their former appearance, the audience is brought to the real place of happenings itself as an authentic documentary object instead of an artificial imitation of the scenery.
The soundscapes were individually designed for each single room, approaching a sonic translation of different visual and ambient situations discovered on the spot.
the Audioguide Performance PRISON WALK is a collaboration with the performance group Profi Kollektion (direction Jan Deck & Katja Kämmerer).
Sound excerpts will be added soon.
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scape_ 2013 – 15
[electroacoustic compositions for 4 – 12 loudspeakers ]
scape_1 premiered @ DEGEM concert 2013, HMTMH Hanover || scape_2 & scape_3 premiered @ Kultur-Etage Messestadt 2014, Munich, 2014 || scape_4 premiered @ Radio Depot, Dortmund, 2014 || scape_12 premiered @ USAP Berlin, 2014
scape_ is a series of compositions that consists of musical material generated from modulated underwater recordings and sounds of crickets. The complex spectrum of underwater sounds of the River „Main“ in Frankfurt (Germany) in combination with recordings of insects leads to an extraordinary crystalline sonority. The soundscapes are removed from their former context, confronted with their diversity, and finally transformed until they reach the highest level of intersection. Rhythms and melodies arised as artefacts from various sound synthesis methods are additionally integrated as musical material. scape_12 is a 12-channel – composition. it discovers the calm and sparkling backside of a large city beside all the common urban noises.
scape_1 has been released on Edition DEGEM 2014.
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