Of Sound in the Landing Page

'Of Sound in the Landing Page' was commissioned as part of the festival ‘Philosophy on Stage 4 –The Artist-Philosopher’ at Tanzquartier, Vienna. This was the culmination of a series of workshops where philosophers and artists came together to explore Nietzsche’s notion of the artist-philosopher. Artists work with and think through ‘matter’ – something Nietzsche was sympathetic to even though he, like all philosophers, created almost exclusively through words. To challenge this, 'Of Sound in the Landing Page' re-articulated 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as a soundscape, liberating the physical forces described by Nietzsche to convey his ideas and honouring his conviction that music is the highest form of philosophy. I produced a ‘foley’ score and conducted two professors of philosophy in using their hands and everyday objects to simulate the sounds thus conflating philosophy, action and matter. Collaborating on the work were the trumpeter Franz Hautzinger who developed and performed sounds to convey all animal life in the pages of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ and electronic composer Wolfgang Mitterer who created a spatial sound to evoke all references to the spinning wheel of the eternal return.