The doyen of the European art scene Francesca Von Habsburg and her TBA-21 contemporary art foundation have brought their unique Morning Line art installation-cum-sound system to Vienna. Chris Sullivan was there for opening night.
I’m in a gloriously sunny Vienna for the opening of The Morning Line, an enormously ambitious project commissioned by Francesca Von Habsburg’s TBA-21 contemporary art foundation that marks the beginning of the Festival for Spatial Sound and Advanced Music Composition.
Basically a portable sonic pavilion, The Morning Line is a huge honeycombed sculpture that, designed by artist Matthew Ritchie in collaboration with award winning architect’s Aranda/Lash, and uses an interactive ambi-sonic sound system (made by the Music Research Centre of Britain's York University) comprising 47 speakers to broadcast a series of stimulating new works by some of the world’s greatest sonic artists.
Having already made waves in Seville and Istanbul, the 20-tonne coated aluminium, 8-metre high and 20-metre long public art structure has been unpacked and assembled in a completely new form developed especially for Vienna.
This year’s creator Franz Pomassl has also gathered together yet another gang of sound sculptors to debut their new compositions especially created for the event alongside the work of TML veterans such as Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, synthesizer inventor Peter Zinovieff, Einar Orn of The Sugarcubes and Sigur Ros remixer Curver who collectively form Iceland’s Ghost Digital.
And set against the magnificent Viennese skyline,The Morning Line is an impressive sight in its site in the Schwarzenbergplatz. For the opening night hundreds of attendees, including DJ/musician Electric Indigo, sound artists, Thilges 3, Viennese DJ Sweet Susie, photographer Christian Egger, Peter Rantasa, founder of the Viennese electronic festival PhonoTAKTIK and Matthias Losek, artistic director of Wien Modern, filled the square to bursting as they filed in and out of The Morning Line as each artist filled the space with sounds.
© Jakob Polacsek/T-B A21, 2011
First up was Austrian Christian Fennesz. Using laptops and a guitar, Christian produced a throbbing multi-layered sound scape that formed the perfect introduction for an audience not accustomed to such a unique presentation.
Next up was Ukrainian sound artist Zavoloka, whose by using delays and reverbs creates an abstract sonic structure that when heard inside The Morning Line felt is if you were inside the womb of a woman chewing bones: it’s incessant throb undermined by echoing cracks and creaks.
To end the opening night’s performances, East Berlin concept artist Carsten Nicolai staged a work that drew on research into the sun’s corona and the solar winds and comprised of a series of ascending electronic sound effects drawn from the sun’s magnetic impulses and layered with reverbed percussion.
Francesca Von Habsburg and TBA-21 also know how to stage a party and we headed to Club Moulin Rouge where we grooved to modern sounds of DJs Carsten and Olaf Nicolai, Franz Pomassl and Anna Ceeh, Alexei Borisov and DJ TG, aka Tommi Grönlund.
I left at 3am with Peter Rehberg, MD of Viennese experimental record label, Editions Mego, [www.editionsmego.com] which releases the world's foremeost sonic artists, and Aphex Twin collaborator Russell Haswell (who curated The Morning Line in Istanbul). We made our way to a Viennese sausage stall where we ate Frankfurter Würstel with mustard and drank beer. I’ve been told that this is the traditional Viennese way to end a big night out. Whatever the case it certainly tied my laces.
The Morning Line is in Vienna until November 2011. Find out more from www.tba21.org
Want more?
- Visit The Morning Line on Facebook
- Dr Peter Zinovieff's Red Bull Music Academy lecture
- More music and arts from Redbull.com
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