2022/2023
releases January 15, 2023
2021
MEATGRINDER is an audio play staged in exhibition space. At three listening stations ("Gamma Radiation",
"Un", "Null Layer"), parts of a narrative can be experienced via headphones and precision speakers. In this setting the radio play is detached from its linearity and can be experienced as a
fragmentary story in space.
The work is based on texts created during a research project on the architecture of the 2000s. The structure, aesthetics, economic logic of contemporary logistics
companies were examined. Particular focus was placed on the factor of invisible work, implemented, lived and experienced by people in spaces characterized by industrial
rationalization.
The literary core of the work is the chamber play. The chamber play is told from three perspectives "protagonist", "world", "director", each of which can be heard on
different channels and loudspeakers. The voices, sound fragments and drones are choreographed in such a way that classical dialogue situations, but also condensations, superimpositions, blends
are created in the listening space.
The audio piece is reproduced digitally through directional loudspeakers attached to various objects. Using special ultrasound devices, the sound is projected
directly onto the surface of the listeners' skin and is not transmitted through the air, as is the case with other directional sound methods.
Voice: Pia Bergerbusch, Philipp Höning
Premiere: "Das Leben, es ist gut" at Atelier- und Galeriehaus Defet, Nürnberg
2018/2019
SKULLSPLITTER (Part of the Skullsplitter Cycle) is based on the fictional log of a person who seems to work as a technician on an
offshore platform. We learn that the location is an offshore server system and is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Over the course of three chapters NO WORD FOR, DARK SPAM, and BLACK
SPAM, the subject develops a conflicting knowledge of the nature of the place where she is located.
The subject is confronted with a growth of background processes such as temperature changes and impossible day/night cycles. The patterns of these changes seem completely obscure and artificial.
The subject slowly loses important, subject-constituting terms such as I, me, etc., and slowly but surely begins to lose sight of the distinction between dream, daydream, and reality.
With
SKULLSPLITTER, the trilogy of the same name comes to an end.
Voice: René Haustein
Premiere: Quartier am Hafen Festival, Cologne 2020.
Broadcasts/Screenings: Institut für Betrachtung-Radio, Dublab, the Raum mit Licht, Vienna, at the Buchstäblich series at Papier und Gelb/EXC Düsseldorf and at Schwanenmarkt 1 in Bochum.
2018
The End of Dying (Part of the Skullsplitter Cycle)is the result of research on the dying shopping malls of the late 80s/90s, both in Tokyo and in Los Angeles The results in the form of images and texts are brought into reaction with the theme of the fever dream. Certain phenomena typical of the fever dream, such as Miropsia/Macropsia, i.e. the false perception of sizes and above all differences in distance, slowly become the basis of all perceptions of a protagonist. A book, a radio play in two languages (En/De), a music production, which at the same time provides the soundtrack to the radio play, are the result of this experiment, along with a series of prints. As in Dilemmas Accumulate, the text represents an inner monologue, based on the artist's own and others' dream protocols. Over a period of seven "days," the dreamer descends into a negative landscape, unaware of the reason for his/her being in that place. The only other person is a young boy. It is not known if the boy is real or just a fold in the personality of the person dreaming. The bases on which the dialogues are created seem to be constantly changing. Listeners seemingly relive the traumatic experiences of young people in places completely foreign to them.
Voices: Pia Bergerbusch, Jonathan Lemke
Premiere: King Georg/Dublab Cologne 2018
Broadcasts/Screenings: Dublab Los Angeles 2018
2017
In Dilemmas Accumulate (Part of the Skullsplitter Cycle)we encounter an astronaut who seems to suffer from amnesia. He finds
himself in total solitude in a space station in Earth orbit. Over the course of three chapters, the narrator is confronted with the loss of language. Practically word for word, he loses the terms
for what he is experiencing. Space/time terms become taboo (above, below, past). With the language the last barrier between his consciousness and his environment falls. The relationship with the
space station begins to erode and thoughts fall apart into a system of delusions.
Dilemmas Accumulate consists of three books, each describing a state of the person, a video work, which is shown
together with the radio plays in the room, and a radio play.
Speaker: René Haustein
Premiere: A-performance fesival in Reykjavik 2016,
Broadcasts/Screenings: Tiefgarage Köln am Ebertplatz, KHMRadio (OTIC), Radiophrenia, Glasgow