Search for Flawless Space

In his double spatial opening number, trombonist Bertl Mütter (AT) uses his paired instruments—das Mut- und das Wunderhorn—to pose a musical question entitled irreprehensibilis? that enquires into what makes for a perfect location: How flawless must such a place be for none of it to have to be taken back? After all, in sharp contrast to another festival venue, Mariendom, the cathedral that, in Mütter’s opinion, still pretty much lives up to the intention of its builders, the Postal Service logistics center was “shockingly soon” obsolete. Nevertheless, Mütter himself carries on, visibly and invisibly, nearly inaudibly and then back with vehemence, and ultimately, as sort of the stunt of the evening, from the Train Hall’s bridge.

Tilting Piano

Rupert Huber (AT) then tilts his piano into a horizontal electronic field. His tender depressions of the keys, barely enough to coax out a tone, lets the piano resound on its own. The stronger he gets, the more and louder the tones get before vanishing into an acoustic pillar, and the more intensively they are, in turn, fed into an accompanying plug-in that extends and expands them, gives them wings, and transforms them into a timeless meshwork. He’s followed on stage by Maki Namekawa (AT/JP), who’ll interpret selected etudes by Philip Glass, and thus lesser-known works from the American composer’s oeuvre, on the concert grand.

Musical Migration

Then it’s time for Peter Androsch and Anatol Bogendorfer (Hörstadt/AT) to fire up their Diaspora Maschine and use musical ways & means to consider the wave of refugees currently crashing onto Europe’s coastlines and the utter failure of an entire political class.

Mass Extinction

Next up is raum.null, a collaboration of Chris Bruckmayr (AT) and Dobrivoje Milijanovic (SR), with a performance entitled the sixth wave of mass extinction that goes acoustically and visually to the core of postmodern society, limning the potential threat inherent in a worldwide die-off of flora and fauna that has already gotten quietly underway.

Parallel Worlds and Retro Films

Lightening things up a bit are DJs Lotic and M.E.S.H from Salon 2000, a parallel universe of music, film and art engendered in 2013, and DJs Uli Mayr and Thomas Scheutz (AT). The program will be preceded by and punctuated with short films by pioneering Linz filmmaker Alexander Hans Puluj (AT). In 1949 he founded Linz’s first art cinema and built up a film production company that specialized in animation, industrial films and tourism footage, and thus indirectly captured the city’s development during the postwar boom years.

Opening Schedule POST CITY

Everyday life in the city of the future that´s become so quiet that the urban soundscape has to be artificially (and artistically) designed is sketched by Wolfgang Dorninger (AT) in POST CITY–An Aural Fiction. On the basis of a concept by Wolfgang C. Kuthan (FR/AT) and with visual support from Herwig Bachmann, (AT) guitarist Karl Ritter (AT) will perform Soundfalls, a high-energy sound painting with guitar feedback.

Once again, the Big Concert Night pays respects to composer Philip Glass in the form of selected piano etudes performed by Maki Namekawa (JP/AT) to a real-time visualization by Cori O´Ian (AT). Also on the lineup are Dennis Russell Davies (US) and the Bruckner Orchester Linz with Ge Xu–Antiphony (Chen Yi) and Symphony in G#-Minor (Elliot Goldenthal), Peter Karrer with Selbsttonfilm, the Diaspora Maschine by Peter Androsch (AT) and Anatol Bogendorfer (AT), and trombonist Bertl Mütter (AT) with an alfresco intervention.

Download the folder of the Big Concert Night as PDF file

CyberArts 2015

Guided tour with the OK staff
20:00 – 20:20: Rawr! A Study in Sonic Skulls
Brückenstudio
20:25 – 20:40: Electromechanical Modular
3. OG – Foyer, balcony
20:50 – 21:15: Tipping Point
Dachboden
21:30 – 22:00: Soft Revolvers
U-Hof, Hall

Electronic Theatre
20:00 – 21:30: Höhenrausch, Summer Cinema
21:45 – 23:15 Uhr: Moviemento, Movie 2

Live
21:00 – 21:30: Odd (Klub Sir3ne, Wien/AT)
21:30 – 22:30: Fontarrian (Antime/Disko404, Graz/AT)

Solaris DJs
Davi dB & Der Fux (Salopp!/Jhruza rec./AT)

The Nature of the Future

In contrast to the development of humankind’s urban habitat, there’s no master plan for the near-term future of our forests. Whereas Stifter’s Bohemian Woods are primarily a source of wood products today, gigantic old-growth trees are no longer to be found in now-nonexistent primeval forests, but rather in downtown parks and city gardens. With this as our current state of affairs, how will we go about configuring nature as a future habitat fit for human beings? This is the question that *Hochwald* seeks to answer at the 2015 Voestalpine Klangwolke in Donaupark.