Andante Calmo, 2014
Andante Calmo, 2014
Installation Kunsthaus Hamburg
Photo: Felix Krebs
Andante Calmo, 2014
LIVE PERFORMANCE
Kampnagel, 2.11.2014
Gesang: Daria Treder, Gabriele Vasiliauskaite, Derya Yildirim
Geige: Ruth May
Musik: Michaela Melián
Toningenieur: Felix Raeithel
Video: Katharina Duve
The point of departure for Michaele Melián’s sound work ANDANTE CALMO is an aria from Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème. Premiered in 1896, the opera revolves around the lives of young Parisian Bohemians. The plot culminates in a disaster – not brought about by interpersonal or national political conflicts, however, but from within: the protagonist Mimì suffers from tuberculosis and dies. In the nineteenth century, tuberculosis was associated with an excessive sensitivity to which artists and above all people in love were thought to be susceptible. Melián has now endeavoured to bring the material up to date by composing a new soundtrack based on the part of Mimì. Using various contemporary sounds as well as a shellac recording of 1919, she has produced a collage of a fragile and melancholy quality. A chorus of three young singers plays the part of Mimì, whose image as a woman oscillates between weakness and libido. The listening space is a fundamental component in the œuvre of Michaela Melián who, in addition to her work in the area of the visual arts, is also a musician and founding member of the band F.S.K. Like colours and forms, sounds can influence the impact of a place in various ways. Executed especially for the exhibition, Melián’s sound work ANDANTE CALMO is like an immaterial sculpture that meanders in the aether over the city and materializes in various formats: her version of the aria can be accessed by way of a QR code and also forms the core of her sound installation at the Kunsthaus. Here the piece not only etches itself into the location materially, but virtually interweaves with the other works in the exhibition. A small stage with headphones invites the visitors to try out a new position in the room, a position which – defined by the isolated, intense experience of music and the physical elevation of the platform – possesses elements of distance as well as theatrical display.
Within the framework of the symposium THERAPEUTIC ALLIANCES, ANDANTE CALMO was presented as a performance. At Kampnagel Hamburg: 2 November, 7:15 pm, room P1 Jarrestrasse 20, 22303 Hamburg
ANDANTE CALMO is produced in cooperation of the project ILLNESS AS METAPHOR: MADNESS IN THE GARDEN OF THE SPECIES (Hamburg, 2014, ) with the Ursula Blickle Foundation, where a different version of the installation is presented in November 2014.
Andante Calmo, 2014
LIVE PERFORMANCE
A HOUSE OF PASSIVE NOISE, Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Novemer 15, 2014
Voice: Daria Treder, Derya Yildirim
Andante Calmo, 2014
Installation view
A HOUSE OF PASSIVE NOISE, Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Nov 15 - Dec 7, 2014
Voice: Daria Treder, Gabriele Vasiliauskaite, Derya Yildirim
Violin: Ruth May
Music: Michaela Melián
Sound engineer: Felix Raeithel
Video: Katharina Duve
Andante Calmo
Radikales Denken. Zur Aktualität Susan Sontags
Münchner Kammerspiele, November 27, 2014
Gesang: Maxie Reichart, Foto: Judith Buss