English below!

 

Erst jetzt habe ich festgestellt, dass ich das Interview, das ich im Februar mit dem Komponisten Peter Ablinger geführt hatte, noch nicht hier im Blog verlinkt und vorgestellt habe, sondern nur auf der Website. Das hole ich jetzt nach.

 

Peter Ablinger ist ein in Berlin lebender Komponist, der sich schon seit langer Zeit in seiner Arbeit mit Aspekten beschäftigt, die für vocal ecotism relevant sind.  Einen Überblick über sein ziemlich faszinierendes Werk findet sich auf seiner Website https://ablinger.mur.at.

Beim Abhören der Aufnahme ist mir aufgefallen, dass Peter Ablinger und ich während des Gesprächs ziemlich viele stimmliche Interventionen gemacht haben, die nicht direkt sprachgebunden sind. Davon hätte ich vieles herausschneiden können, um das Hörerlebnis glatter zu machen. Aber ich glaube, in der ursprünglichen Version zeigt sich gut, dass wir beide nicht Statements abgeben wollen, sondern in einer Suchbewegung sind, zu der das Stocken und Zögern als integraler Bestandteil gehört.

Außerdem bekommt die Aufnahme dadurch ansatzweise die Qualität eines Hörstücks. Da gibt es rhythmische Veränderungen, Wiederholungen, Pausen, kurz: Man kann das Gespräch auch als Klangduett hören! Womit sich einiges von dem, was im Interview gesagt wird, direkt praktisch klanglich umgesetzt hätte!

 

Hier ist die Aufnahme: https://soundcloud.com/stimmfeld/gesprach-mit-peter-ablingertalk-with-peter-ablinger?in=stimmfeld/sets/vocal-ecotism&si=af1f530e1d92408097e1778b06939ec8&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing.

 

 

 

 

Only now I realized that I haven´t put a link and a preasentation of my interview with Peter Ablinger into this blog. Until now it was only on my website.

 

English:

This talk was held in German but at the link on the left you find a short abstract. If you have any questions, please don´t hesitate to contact me!

Peter Ablinger is a composer living in Berlin who works since decades on subjects and projects that are related to our questions of vocal ecotism. 

You find an overview of his fascinating work on his website https://ablinger.mur.at.

When listening to the recording, I realised that Peter Ablinger and I made quite a few vocal interventions during the conversation that were not directly related to speech. I could have cut a lot of that out to make the listening experience smoother. But I think the original version does a good job of showing that we both don't want to make statements, but are in a searching movement, of which hesitation and faltering are an integral part.

It also gives the recording the quality of an audio piece to some extent. There are rhythmic changes, repetitions, pauses, in short: you can hear the conversation as a sound duet! Which means that some of what is said in the interview is directly and practically realised in sound!

This is the recording: https://soundcloud.com/stimmfeld/gesprach-mit-peter-ablingertalk-with-peter-ablinger?in=stimmfeld/sets/vocal-ecotism&si=af1f530e1d92408097e1778b06939ec8&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing.

 

And here comes a short abstract of our talk in English:

 

 

Abstract: Talk with Peter Albinger

 

 

 

0:00 – 2:00

 

Ralf: introduction voice/music and ecology

 

2:00 -

 

Q: Which role does the idea of nature and the ecological issues play in your work as a composer?

 

A. There is no concept. Working with these issues just happens, it comes to my mind and then I have to do it. So art emerge somehow. But with art there are the biggest doubts about the effect. People who get in contact with this art don´t need to be convinced. They know already the situation. Why am I doing it? I don´t know. Definitely not to show that I am a better person or so. The only justification is that as an artist I am present in public space and feel a kind of responsibility.

 

5:50 – 18:40

 

A.I did a political intervention at the Art Academy Berlin related to the actions of Last Generation and the attempt of some politicians to “protect” art against these activists.

 

Q. Discussion of the theory of social tipping points.

 

A. Yes, let´s hope! Sometimes I believe in angels.

 

From this intervention at the Academy emerged a more artistic intervention in which I declared a general strike of art! This and my statement “We artists failed!” in relation to the ecological situation, too, are statements but at the same time I sing a song with it.

 

18:40 -  22:55

 

Is the voice close to nature? I doubt because for me voice is first of all the tool that create the relation to the world through language. That is crucial. More than the natural quality of the voice. Voice is a tool. Being human means to use tools/instruments.

 

When I work with language one of my challenges is that I don´t surrender to the meaning of the language. Music has to do with a refusal of language, with something that is beyond language. I have to reach this “beyond” also inside language.

 

 

 

22:55 – 30:10

 

Q. I agree that it is difficult to say voice is close to nature because I have problems with the word and concept of nature. But I would claim that voice is always more than just a tool or instrument because every vocal sound gives more than just the sound, something that you can interpret in some way.

 

 

 

Q. I want to refer to your work. I appreciate very much your way of dealing with material. For me and vocal ecotism it is a question how we should work with sound material. There is often the modern or capitalistic way of just using it for my purposes. In your work one can hear that you treat the material with more respect and start more a dialogue with it rather than just take it as material

 

A. Good that this can be heard because I try to work with sounds in a way that I leave it as it is and build a framework for it in which this is possible. Not an easy task though.

 

 

 

30:10 – 36:00

 

A. About concept of nature. There is a composition from me with the title: Against nature. Of course it is not against nature but against the concept of nature that we normally share. This concept claims in an ethical way that everything that is natural is good, and everything else rather not.

 

This music is based on a recording of frogs in a little lake. Their sounds have very interesting rhythmic patterns. Combined  with the recording of lorries at Brandenburger Tor on Berlin honking together. (34:25)

 

 

 

Q. I see a certain risk that music and vocal art that deals with so called natural sounds falls into the trap of romanticism.

 

 

 

36:00 – 46:50

 

Q.Back to the question of how to deal with the material: do you think the way you deal with it is a contribution to the question, how we should deal with the world and everything in it in general? (37:50)

 

A. My attitude of working with sound material in a way that I don´t change everything but give space for the material to emerge is related to this relatively new (ecological) attitude about the world. But it is much older. I work with it since the beginning and in the early years the question of how wwe understand the world in a less distructive way didn´t play a big role in what I did.

 

I always tried to see the artist as a figure that is not elevated but has his role and his tasks in society like other people as well.

 

One example for this attitude is a very small work of mine with to foils of aluminium with two microphones, each on one foil, both connected and able to receive the small movements of the foil and turn it into sound.

 

 

 

46:50 – 58:20

 

Q. We talked about two different approaches of art, the one that deals with the idea of a genius that creates everything out of himself (not so often herself) and uses everything in the world to work on his ideas. The other approach that we prefer is about an artist who has another understanding of his/her relationship to the world. Is it possible that this approach indicates art as the sphere where these other understandings of the world could survive during the times of modernism and capitalism? Has art been a sort of niche for these forms of relationship to the world which emphazise more on dialogue, respect etc. and not so much on controlling and dominating? If so, do artists, who work in these ways already – like you – have the chance to support the movement towards a less destructive relationship to the world than the one that is dominant in our times? Can we contribute our experiences?

 

 

 

A.I do believe that this niche inside the niche of art exists but I am very sceptic if this attitude is present in art in general. In music there is very little to find of it, most of what is happening is still related to the old concept of genius. Maybe more you can find in Fina Arts. There is a lot of works who are political in one or the other way. But the problem there seems to me that the relation to politics and the associated problems is rhetorical and not aesthetic.

 

 

 

58:20 – End

 

Thank you!