Disturbed Waltz_e

2023, 6'22''

In „Disturbed Waltz“ I use 3 waltz themes, as well as voice fragments of public figures. An automated voice speaks the dance instructions.
The splinters of men’s and women’s voices interweave with each other, with the music and the sounds to form a complex structure.

The basic idea of this composition is to lead the listeners into a world of ambivalence and controversial feelings, a sonic journey characterized by a mixture of familiarity and strangeness.

 

Thinking about sound

2021, 8'40''

Thinking about sound

This piece is a kind of work report. Sound from all possible sources is exhibited, questioned and mixed.

Is it possible to compose a still life in the acoustic area? To capture the essential energy in an infinite loop? Music and sound exist in the flow of time. An acoustic still life is a contradiction per se. This composition is created in this field of ​​tension.

The integrated language is intended as a kind of acoustic subtitles, a guide through the piece.

 

Liberty – a game

2019, 6'04''

A free acoustic figuration.
Artificial or real?
„Liberty – a game“ manipulates sound concepts and questions the listener’s perception.
The compositional approach: I use sound fragments as if they were musical instruments.

 

Fleeing gardens

2009, 9'59''

Musical landmarks are only fragmentarily present and are blended with noise-sounds and media-splinters. A sound-trip on the border between inner and outer worlds.
Structures dissolve one another. Virtual and physical event worlds communicate with each other.
Animal noises remind us of fairy tale figures, seduce us into the world of myth.
In the mounting and mixing process, each noise, each musical fragment and each silence temporarily fulfill an informing function, but in the next instant withdraw from just having had any meaning.

 

Looted cityscape

2009, 8'34''

In this piece „Looted Cityscape“ social structures dissolve one another. Virtual and actual event worlds communicate with each other. Sound material: a melody played on a toy instrument, spoken choral fragments, sounds discovered in a city.

 

 

 

Songs of November, 3 fragments

2008, 4'24''

Broken pieces of a wind band, prayers, swaths of fog over cool ground. An oath of nature and our alliance with the elements earth, air, water and fire.

 

Summer, 5 fragments

2008, 5'38''

These fragments are an homage to Summer – sound-snapshots of intense moments of fugitive moods.
Pictorial expression is essential, as well as brevity, density and economy of sound material used in these acoustical miniatures, which have been assembled from bits of music, little noises and background sounds, which in turn have been extracted from remembered, supposed and dreamed mood moments.

 

Stumbling waltz

2008, 3'50''

Proposal for the Work Overture Project IMEB Bourges 2008 (from revolts to revolutions)
The waltz was a sign of social revolution.
This „grinding“ waltz (in the sense of a hurdy-gurdy) just never gets off the ground.
The soundmaterial consists of: One sample of two waltz measures, one improvising voice, some noises.

 

Happiness

2007, 7'19''

What is happiness?  Does broken glass bring luck? The predominant idea seems to be that the noise which is made by smashing glass conjures good luck and drives evil spirits away. An acoustical track hunt.  Two waltzes by Johannes Brahms form the musical point of departure. 

 

 

Tumbling and swinging

2000, 8'59''

Voice and accordeon: Fränzi Madörin

The acoustical memory, the audio archive in head and body. Recollected melodic and motion fragments are mounted into sketches, short acoustical poems. Interpretation suggestions and tempo markings of movements of musical works form the spoken material. The fairy waves her magic wand and comments.

 

The sickroom

2007, 9'02''

This acoustical poem confronts us with the fragility and mortality of the body, with the subtle signs which it radiates, as
well as with hidden beauties, which appear unexpectedly.
Audio point of departure is the Theme of the E-flat major Variations by Robert Schumann.  The singer heard the melody through headphones and improvised upon it.

 

Sailing with Schubert

2006, 4'21''

Text: Friedrich Leopold, Count of Stolberg-Stolberg

Point of departure for this sailboat trip is Opus 72 by Franz Schubert.
By the use of analog and digital electronics we sail
on a sea of fantasy and distance ourselves step by step from the original.  The landing is uncertain..

 

Turns and twists

2007, 6'45''

The dance of bodies and material. The motion of sound producing bodies and material is composed with sound fragments and economically used electronics into a little Suite in 13 movements. Johannes Brahms‘ Waltz in A-flat major, opus 39, no. 15 serves as musical point of departure.

 

Body in music

2004, 9'53''

Voice: Saadet Türköz

A reflection on the separation of the body on the one hand and musical happening on the other.
Merging of music and body. Important elements mould acoustical material at the limit of musicality: disturbing sounds, leftover sounds, sounds of seemingly secondary importance, noise and silence, as well as the expressive realm of sound-producing movement: stamping, creaking, sighing, rattling ….

 

Free body – free sound

2001, 9'31''

(Corpo libero – suono libero)
Voice: Saadet Türköz

Musical garbage, noise and silence and the human body, which manipulated and conditioned itself, recollects strengths and attempts to free itself. The intimate nearness of creative and destructive expressive potentials.

 

Test tube (Trailer)

2019, 0'54''

Audiovisual installation in the Soundgalerie Ohrenhoch Berlin

It grumbles, jerks and yearns… 
Curator, loudspeaker installations: Knut Remond

 

The development of systems which can recognize, interpret, process and simulate human emotions goes ahead. This provokes questions: Where is the difference between artificial and real? What happens to indefinable moods?

In „Test Tube“ the measurement of human emotions is the topic.

Sounds and noises from our everyday life, which draw, reform and manipulate subconces emotions, are collected. This audio material is nested, taken apart or condensed in sound balls. Spoken words describe a possible meaning.

Fictive scenarios and undefinable ambiances arise and disappear again. It grumbles, jerks and yearns…

In this interplay/counterplay of fragmented ambiaces, the borders between artificial and real are demanded and varied.

 

To be…in the kitchen

2016, 1'14''

Audio-Videowork 

Curator, loudspeaker installation: Knut Remond

 

Oil, water sugar and Mariechen..the longing is immense.
From the center of the kitchen, from the stove, a sort of kitchen-scape is drawn, where pans clatter and soup simmers.
„Je suis in the kitchen“ is derived from fragments of kitchen songs, which used to be sung by servants in bourgeois homes while doing their work.
In the composition, I have taken this historical category of fok poems, and spiced it with irritating moments and associative ideas in order to break the sentimental tonal basis.
I found the juxtaposition of harmony and disturbing elements to be most interesting. Acoustical and visual materials gets worked over, ordered and concentrated.
„Je suis in the kitchen“ rediscovers the ambivalence between fear and longing, between opinion and feelings.
It is stirred in the soup. An intact world is summoned, which is repeatedly disturbed.

 

1800 meters above sea level (extract)

2014, 7'01''

1800 meters above sea level (extract)

12-channel installation for the Project USAP (Urban Solar Audio Plant) from Peter Eisold and Micha Dawid.
The acoustic material of this sound, which originates from the foothills of the alps, is of a narrative sort, telling of nature, of myths and spirits. In a 12-channel installation, the acoustic tracks of the experiential world „foothills region“ are staged in variously dense, sometimes static, sometimes in more dynamic acoustic images. 

 

Suite on domestic life

2006, 9'14''

This temporary Sound-Installation was designed for the furniture department of the Shopping Center Risparmione in Suno (Italy).
The loudspeakers were mounted in hidden places, for example under the bed, in the kitchen complex, in between sofas, in the clothes closet… The suite consists of 17 movements, whose density spectrum ranges from very dense to empty (silence). The order in which the movements were played was determined by random. The sound material consists of sounds of domestic life: real or distorted, social or intimate. During quiet movements, one’s attention is drawn to the actual acoustical environment of the Centro Risparmione. The basic idea is to provoke a subtle irritation, a sort of capped reality which intensifies and expands the physical space and the acoustical experience within that space.

 

Piece of music

1998, 3'45''

Sound installation in the Café Philosoph, Basel

Kurator: Christoph Keller

 

Soundscape for fashion show

2002, 29'13''

Soundscape for fashion show in medieval paper mill,
Museum night Basel

 

Still

1989, 16'21''

Soundscape

 

Strolling along

1989, 15'39''

 

Mantra

1987, 3'11''

Perpetuum mobile for a Soundinstallation from Hans Wüthrich on the Old Citywall Basel.

 

Landschlaf

1984, 13'49''

Soundscape for a exhibition (landscapes) by Margrit Woodtli in the SWB Forum Bern.
Sounds as an acoustic perfume. We asked ourselves, how sounds support, manipulate or even disrupt visual perception.