EMERGE plays Gerald Fiebig: passages

gebrauchtemusik ° gm039
attenuation effect ° 1033 ° 2023
attenuationcircuit.de ° attenuation-circuit@web.de

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cassette version released by Red Light Studio 光 in 2023
redlightstudio.bandcamp.com

played, recorded and mastered by EMERGE
all original sounds and artwork by Gerald Fiebig

geraldfiebig.net
emergeac.wordpress.com

video: live version:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTV6jC4_AbQ

credits

released May 15, 2023

The passage of time, the passage from one imaginary space, and from one mind (or computer) to another – these are the passages that give this album its title.

Of course every piece of music passes from mind to mind as the ideas of its creator(s) become audible waves, enter another’s ear and get decoded in the brain of this listener. But in this case, the passage was already part of the composition.

After a decade of collaborations both in live improvisation and co-composition, EMERGE and Gerald Fiebig decided to experiment with a new creative challenge. The selection of materials and the composition were to be split between them.

For this piece, Gerald Fiebig collected a variety of sonic objects – field recordings, found sounds, instrumental parts, electronic sequences, both archival and original – and passed them on to EMERGE. Most of the sounds held autobiographical significance for Fiebig, but as no background information was supplied to EMERGE, the passage of sounds from one to the other allowed the sounds to free themselves of that limitation.

Nevertheless, the sounds were ‚thematically‘ grouped in sets of twelve, in view of the memory banks of the Roland SP-404 samplers used by EMERGE, but without any prior agreements on the choice of material or restrictions imposed by Fiebig on how to use the sounds. EMERGE set himself the challenge to integrate all the supplied sound files into the resulting compositon.

Working through the diverse groups of sounds, he created five pieces of varying duration and very different character. The listener can choose to follow the imaginary passageway that connects these five sonic and atmospheric spaces, but they can also choose to find their own paths by listening to the pieces in a different order.

With every passage – from Fiebig to EMERGE, and from EMERGE to every listener – the sounds lose old meanings and acquire new ones, creating – between all the listeners – an ever larger virtual network of references precisely out of the things that are not communicated in language, but only in sound. As such, the compositional process behind „passages“ is something of a sonic utopia of human cooperation, because, als Walter Benjamin wrote: „Progress does not reside in the continuity of the passage of time, but in its interferences.“

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Passagen. Werk für Walter Benjamin

SHORT SYNOPSIS IN ENGLISH:

„Passages/Arcades. A Work for Walter Benjamin“ is a tribute to the German philosopher, media theorist, and radio writer marking the 80^th anniversary of his death on 26 September 1940. The radiophonic composition consists of several parts which each give acoustic shape to Benjamin’s thought. While the quotes are in German, the piece can be listened to as a sound work whose methods include radio drama, field recording, drone music, improvised sound work, and noise.

Die Uraufführung der radiophonen Komposition „Passagen. Werk für Walter Benjamin“ wurde am 30.08.2020 ab 21.00 Uhr im Rahmen der Sendung „entartet“ live auf Radio Free FM (Ulm) übertragen. Das Stück wurde von Christian Clement für die Redaktion „entartet“ in Auftrag gegeben.

Am 20.09.2020 sendete die Radiofabrik Salzburg in der Sendung „Artarium“ eine speziell dafür eingerichtete Fassung des Stücks.

Am 16.11.2020 um 10:00 Uhr (MEZ) wurde das Stück auf Radiophrenia in einer speziellen 55-Minuten-Fassung gesendet.

 „Passages/Arcades.A Work for Walter Benjamin“ is a tribute to the German philosopher, mediatheorist, and radio writer marking the 80^th anniversary of his deathon 26 September 1940. The radiophonic composition consists of several partswhich each give acoustic shape to Benjamin’s thought. While the quotes are inGerman, the composer starts the programme by introducing his concept inEnglish, so it can be listened to as a sound work whose methods include radiodrama, field recording, drone music, improvised sound work, and noise. The relationships created between Benjamin’s texts and the sounds in the piece are partly inspired by the essay „Exploding the Atmosphere: Realizing the Revolutionary Potential of ‚the Last Street Song'“ in which New Zealand-based noise musician Bruce Russell situates experimental sound practice in a political context  by referring to Benjamin and the Situationist International.

Das Stück wurde speziell für diese Sendung entwickelt und erinnert anlässlich seines bevorstehenden 80. Todestags an Walter Benjamin – scharfsinniger Kulturtheoretiker und virtuoser Prosaautor, polemischer Literaturkritiker und visionärer Geschichtsphilosoph, messianischer Kommunist und antifaschistischer Kämpfer und nicht zuletzt medienbewusster Radiomacher.
Das Stück verwebt Zitate aus Benjamins Schriften mit unterschiedlichen Klang-Szenen. Gerald Fiebig hat sich in verschiedenen Texten immer wieder auf Walter Benjamin bezogen, aber noch nie in einer akustischen Arbeit. Die Bezüge, die er in diesem Stück zwischen Benjamins Texten und seinen Sounds herstellt, sind teilweise inspiriert von dem Aufsatz „Exploding the Atmosphere: Realizing the Revolutionary Potential of ‚the Last Street Song'“, in dem der neuseeländische Noise-Musiker Bruce Russell experimentelle Sound-Praxis mit Bezug auf Benjamin und die Situationistische Internationale in einen politischen Kontext stellt.

Außer dem „Passagen-Werk“ (v.a. dem Konvolut N) werden u.a. folgende Texte Walter Benjamins zitiert:

„Über den Begriff der Geschichte“

„Das Telefon“ (aus der „Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert“)

„Der Flaneur“

„Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit“

„Was ist das epische Theater?“

„Erfahrung und Armut“

„Der Sürrealismus. Die letzte Momentaufnahme der europäischen Intelligenz“

„Theologisch-politisches Fragment“

The Sonic Witness: On the Political Potential of Field Recordings in Acoustic Art

Contemporary sonic artworks often use field recordings from places of historic or social significance to address political issues. This article discusses relevant works for radio and fixed media by Peter Cusack, Jacob Kirkegaard, Eliška Cílková, Anna Friz and Public Studio, Stéphane Garin and Sylvestre Gobart, Ultra-red, and Matthew Herbert and outlines how they use both audio and visual/textual information to create awareness of the issues inscribed in these places, from current environmental concerns to the memory of genocide and displacement.

LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 14–16, 2015
(c) ISAST

Fiebig_TheSonicWitness

Soundscape und Aura. Zur Verortung und Entortung von Field Recordings in der zeitgenössischen Audiokunst

This essay (in German) was written for a volume accompanying an exhibition at D21 Kunstraum Leipzig exploring the possibility of addressing social and political aspects of the contemporary cityscape through soundworks. It discusses works by Jacob Kirkegaard, Peter Cusack, Biosphere, Stéphane Garin/Sylvestre Gobart, Artificial Memory Trace, Mirt, Frans de Waard, and Zander/Fiebig in order to show different strategies for decontextualising and recoding sounds of specific sites.

Der Aufsatz wurde geschrieben für den Sammelband „Verortungen/Entortungen. Urbane Klangräume“ zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im D21 Kunstraum Leipzig. Mit welchen unterschiedlichen Strategien der Klang spezifischer Orte de- und rekontextualisiert werden kann, untersucht der Text an Arbeiten von Jacob Kirkegaard, Peter Cusack, Biosphere, Stéphane Garin/Sylvestre Gobart, Artificial Memory Trace, Mirt, Frans de Waard und Zander/Fiebig.