2013

November 20-23, 2013 | echoraum | Jesuit Church

Under the motto END LESS NESS, the eighth season of shut up and listen! aims at long enduring artistic endeavors, and the possibly illusory idea of an infinite music, comprising (quasi-)continuous sound presentations as well as repetitive or static sound strategies of diverse makings and provenance, such as drones, textures, pulsations, silences, …

Hermann Nitsch gives one of his rare organ recitals at the Viennese Jesuit Church. The Musique concrète composition Mantra by Québecois Jean-François Laporte is based on a recording of a nightly ride with a Zamboni (a machine cleaning the surface of ice hockey rinks). The musicologist Wolfgang Gratzer reflects upon listening processes and preconditions of infinite music, while Radu Malfatti merges pure tones with sounds of his trombone, leaving just as much space for silence as for sound itself. Gunter Schneider and Barbara Romen transmit their instrumental sounds into a long cardboard tube, and in turn improvise responding to the sonic output of this natural sound filtering device. Schneider’s sound sculpture Im Rohr can be experienced throughout the entire festival. Following the presentation of the shut up and listen! Award 2013 (featuring price-winning works by Helga Arias Parra, Jamez Dean and Felipe Otondo), the violoncellist Michael Moser performs works by Alvin Lucier and himself, exploring the physicality of sound and corresponding listening strategies. With ASLSP, Manon-Liu Winter presents a piano composition by John Cage which in its version for organ received world-wide attention: the presentation of ORGAN²/ASLSP in a church in Halberstadt, Germany, has been going on for the past twelve years and is supposed to last for another, rather eternal, 627 years. This project is also the subject of Sabine Groschup’s experimental film (JC{639}). Sending us one of her Portable Infinity Devices, the Japanese architect Yumi Kori captures infinity inside a small acrylic box. This year’s listening room features Kyema, the first part of Éliane Radigue’s opus magnum Trilogie de la Mort, followed by a festival brunch.