A Factor of Evolution is an ambisonic, multichannel, spatial audio sound- and video-installation (2023) with the voices of Emma Benker, Sarah Mettendorf and myself.
Performance: Sarah Mettendorf
Sounds: cello, prepared piano, shaman drum, synthesizer, field recordings.
We live in times of high competition. Survival of the fittest is the omnipresent motto in most fields of human action, especially in the western world. This philosophy was only established about 200 years ago and manifested by Charles Darwin and especially the Social Darwinists at the end of the 19th century. They believed that according to a law of nature, only the physically strongest and most aggressive individuals and species would survive in the struggle for life. Many Social Darwinists justified therefore capitalism and racism with devastating consequences in the coming decades until nowadays.
Peter Kropotkin is attempting in his philosophical work Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902) to dismantle their arguments and based on numerous observations of zoologists and anthropologists, he proves, that the fittest species are the most sociable ones and that sociability develops intelligence, which is the most powerful arm in the struggle for survival. This includes insects, animals and humans. Higher moral sentiments and compassion is also essential for survival in all societies.
The ritual burning of sage in nature should help to cleanse the negative energy of social darwinism in our world and make room for a more cooperative society, that will secure the well-being of all members, even the most weak ones and furthermore facilitate a more sustainable, safe and content society.
On the 24th of February 2023 I had the opportunity to present this ambisonic spatial audio sound work with this video in the MUTprobe concert hall in the Wolfgang Rihm Forum in Karlsruhe, using over 40 speakers.
I have just finished my new album Contact with sounds from modular sound artist Ricardo M. Peixot in Portugal and Antonis Kastellani in London, who played the lute and the spanish guitar. I've combined these sounds with percussion, field recordings and voices. It was mastered by Rashad Becker in Berlin. Here is a video trilogy from this album, which consists of the tracks Sometimes, Contact and Der Höchste Moment (2023).
Here is the video of my track Coming Home, which is also on my album Contact. I’ve presented on the 22. June 2022 in the Kubus of the ZKM Museum of Media Art in Karlsruhe, Germany, during the InSonic Sound Art Festival.
In the sound installation "Intensive Frog Hearing" field recordings from bogs and lakes in the vicinity of Karlsruhe were used: Frog croaking, crickets chirping, birds chirping, etc. The aim is to draw attention to the biodiversity on our doorstep, to its fragility and beauty, but also to the problems such as invasive species and the omnipresent traffic, aviation and industrial noise.
On the 21. of April 2023, I had the honour to present at the Centre international de Poésie de Marseille CipM these three sound- and videoworks which I've created during a one week residency there. I had the pleasure to cooperate with Julia Lapère who gave me her beautiful poems and recorded them with her incredible voice, that is strong and fragile at the same time.
