arbesbach 2016

is a cartographic performance, that is, a musical performance situated in a specific location. It was realised, recorded and filmed in September 2016 in the Vienna Woods (Wienerwald) in Vienna, Austria.

I like the water beneath my feet, the sound of nature and the nearby road mixing with the music. The performance is based on in a series of previous improvisations in the same location. Music and environmental sounds mix. What I perceive, feel, notice, dream, and think comes in, too. A polyphony of sounds come together in my listening process during the performance.

This performance is a feminist action.
The personal becomes political.
My inside connects to my environment as I perform.

Standing in the water I listen:

to the murmuring brook,
to the cars passing by (clearly, we are in the anthropocene now),
to birdcalls,
to an inner sonosphere,
to (my) mind.

I notice the warmth of sunrays on my shoulders, the cold water around my feet (through the boots), the joy of performing and handling my instrument in this environment. I remember my childhood: I had often played in this brook as a young girl.

I reflect on my position as an artist, citizen, and woman within this precarious environment.

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Precarious life is the title of an essay and book by Judith Butler (2004).

Pauline Oliveros has coined the expression sonosphere in her 2011 essay Auralizing the sonosphere: a vocabulary for inner sound and sounding.

Carol Hanisch has written her essay The personal is political in 1969.