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| The Reading Projects, 1991 – 2005
performance installations
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| The Reading Room
performance installation, Biennale Bern, 2001
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| The Memory Project
performance installation, Felix Meritis Foundation, Amsterdam, 1998
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| Memory Arena
performance installation, Hamburg, Munich, Copenhagen, 1995-96
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| The Reading Projects, 1991 – 2005
performance installations |
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In 1991, I received a commission to create what I imagined as a Hypertext Opera based on an edition of “Who´s Who in Central & East Europe 1933” which I had found some years earlier. This theatrical production, which toured in various forms and languages until 1997, was realized containing a libretto assembled from thousands of biographical fragments. The project involved music compositions performed by my music ensemble; spoken and projected text, a sound installation derived from historical audio sources, and an image projection composition of amateur photographic material of the period.
I soon became frustrated with the passive theatrical situation of the proscenium stage and became interested in presenting the living environment in which historical data is stored and archived. In order to make this process transparent, I wanted the public to be involved in a more active sense, and I gradually developed a model for performance and installation which has been presented in various European cities under differing titles since 1995.
The basic concept of these site and city-specific projects involves the invitation of several hundred inhabitants of a city who are then invited to take part in a functioning yet temporary archival installation system. Selections from the archival holdings are read out loud collectively according to a precise timeplan or score. Hundreds of persons from the contemporary cityscape reflect hundreds of forgotten individuals from the past by their presence and participation.
The Reading Projects have been realized in various spatial and temporal contexts, often lasting for four to five hours, over many days or weeks at a time. I am continually experimenting and modifying the forms of presentation, yet the basic elements have remained: A Burocracy which administers the network of travelling archival files, readers, and visitors; a functioning archive system containing historical and contemporary documents; and a reading space or communal area in which the actual reading takes place.
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| The Reading Room
performance installation, Biennale Bern, 2001 |
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A ten-day interactive performance - installation in which 348 Bern citizens took part.
The work functioned as a central portal for the Bern Biennale as well as the setting for daily “live” reading events, an audio-visual installation environment, and selected festival activities. Public Reading Events took place three times daily for thirty minutes.
As source material, texts on the history of minority and immigrant presence in Switzerland which had been researched and collected especially for the project from archives in Switzerland were contrasted with material from the Reading Projects.
Groups and organizations from the Bern region were selected and registered for participation in the daily public readings. Each day represented a differing textual theme and source.
The installation staff coordinated the registration and arrival of the pre-invited readers.
Texts: Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zürich, Adolf Wölfli, Research Project: Albrecht von Haller, etc.
Design, Technical Direction: Luca Ruzza
Data Projection, Database: Alexandr Krestovskij
Produced by Martin Tröendle, Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Freie Akademie, Bern
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| The Memory Project
performance installation, Felix Meritis Foundation, Amsterdam, 1998
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Presented as a three-week installation, in which digital data from The Reading Projects were displayed and presented alongside incoming biographical data from Amsterdam; and an Event Mode, in which the installation comes to life through the intervention of live readings of historical material.
A staff maintained the installation with 18 persons during the performances. 550 invited personalities from Amsterdam participated in readings in which one to nine persons might be reading outload at any given time.
The setting consisted of a large central monumental structure supporting four black transparent projection screens and containing the archival storage area, surrounded by reading areas and additional digital display surfaces.
Texts: Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933
Design, Technical Direction: Luca Ruzza
Data Projection, Database: Alexandr Krestovskij
Produced by: Toni Cots
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| Memory Arena
performance installation, Hamburg, Munich, Copenhagen, 1995-96
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Kampnagel, Hamburg; Marstall, Munich; 1995
Arken Museum, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen; 1996
A Performance-Installation in which hundreds of readers, both invited and voluntary participate in a reading from the Who's Who text within a very precise temporal and visual environment.
Crowds are processed by burocrats through a labyrinth-linke transit station, passing through numerous passageways, waiting and administration areas, and then to thematically related exhbitions.
The focal point is the archive, from which files are checked out and transported to the „Arena“ where they are read aloud in a polyphonic choreography.
Texts: Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933
Production Direction, Design and Light: Fred Pommerehn
Data Projection: Alexandr Krestovskij
Database Programming: Jost Muxfeldt
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