Closing Performance of the subnetAIR residency at the artspace Fünfzigzwanzig
Thursday, March 20, 2020 | 20:00 – 22:00
Artspace FÜNFZIGZWANZIG
free entry
The festival awards a four-week residency, which ends with a presentation of the project as part of the festival. The residency takes place on the premises of the art space Fünfzigzwanzig and the HCI. Based on their installation ROHBAU MIT AUSSICHT, Stephanie Müller and Klaus Erika Dietl developed the performance GLÜCKSVERSPRECHEN IST GLEICH KNAST.
Klaus Erika Dietl is a visual artist with a background in literature and filmmaking. Since 2012 he has been part of OK DECAY, a performance group that examines and celebrates sonic frictions.
Klaus Erika Dietl studied painting and art theory at the Academy of Fine Arts (AdBK) in Munich. Together with his fellow artist Stephanie Müller he initiated MEDIENDIENST LEISTUNGSHÖLLE in 2009. Since then it has evolved from a vibrant underground studio to a nucleus for international art exchanges.
Dietl’s main research interest is the memory of the unsaid. In his paintings, sound installations and film projects he focuses on the lacks of understanding. What makes us take off the blinkers and question our insecurities and reservations?
Stephanie Müller is an artist and sociological researcher with a fierce love for collaboration and improvisation. In Munich she is based at the MEDIENDIENST LEISTUNGSHÖLLE in the midst of a buzzing collective of artists and activists. Together they develop performances, sound installations and film projects.
Still studying she launched her mixed media art project rag*treasure. Stephanie has been playing the Singer, an amplified sewing machine, since 2004. Together with Laura Melis Theis, an Oxford based songwriter with a background in theater and literature, she initiated beißpony. In October 2013 their debut album was released on Chicks On Speed Records followed by music compositions for a collaboration with Wolfgang Müller (DIE TÖDLICHE DORIS) and a radio play (Licht im Kasten) written by Elfriede Jelinek.
MEDIENDIENST LEISTUNGSHÖLLE’s Klaus Erika Dietl and Stephanie Müller combine fine arts, performance, video and sound art with social sciences. The artists from Munich like looking at the cracks in the surface and questioning what seems to be a given. Which windows are going to open when we no longer feel comfortable sitting (on standby) in the waiting room? What will happen if we enter the room next door instead – a room on the next level, in which a sewing machine and an umbrella end up together on an autopsy table?
As part of the 4-week artist-in-residence program, Dietl and Müller are testing new spaces of opportunity. Little by little, they are developing a performative installation that can be played with and negotiated. With the help of others (e.g. school children, university students, social initiatives and groups), the artists want to take a new approach to the fractures in prescriptive media. First a drop in performance, then a clear view.
Surreal island backdrops offer analogue and digital backgrounds for short videos and can be arranged as you wish. The whole waiting room is turned into a construction site. The entire installation is an open wound, which invites you to play with it freely and leaves room for rearranging and cluttering.
ROHBAU MIT AUSSICHT welcomes all who want to break down common genre conventions and who are looking forward to recording something together. MEDIENDIENST LEISTUNGSHÖLLE deliberately takes a step back in terms of direction and is counting on collaborative processes. All contents that we create will become an open source archive, which you are welcome to use in whichever ways you want.
The result is a mosaic of videos – performative mapping that has to get away and celebrates failure. What happens at the construction site if we crack the demo version? Which windows are going to open when we try something new instead of opting for ‘standby’, just to be safe? Make a mistake. Make all mistakes. Make all the mistakes in the world with MEDIENDIENST LEISTUNGSHÖLLE.
As part of the DIGITAL SPRING Festival, you will catch a glimpse of the audio-visual error log on Thursday, 19 March at the art space Fünzigzwanzig. The construction site is projected onto and turned into a sound box. The mosaic of videos that has been created will be set to music live.
The artists create sound using the range of tools that came into play during the construction. The reinforced sewing machine becomes a rhythm instrument. The laptop adds digital discordance. The steam pipes produce the thumping baseline. The array of screws turns into a glockenspiel, the floristry wire into a string.
Images: © Floriana Betz.