Instructions for Use

The cross-genre project “Instructions for Use” invited composers and video artists to collaborate with the chamber music ensemble ascolta on producing a complete audio-visual work. The project was based on “contraintes”, a concept proposed by the international writers’ group “Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle” in the 1960s, which requires the artist to comply with rigid structural limitations and rules for conceiving and developing a new artwork which should pose a creative challenge.

“Instructions for Use” took this idea a step further and combined it with elements of game theory. Each of the participants was involved in developing the work, but nobody possessed all the necessary information. Moreover, the musicians were not only the performers, but could also participate in the work’s development and dramaturgy, and thereby set the rules of the game themselves. Instead of applying the convention of performing the score for a film or adding footage to an existing piece of music, the project aimed to closely intertwine the music and video, developing them at the same time.
The participating composers and video artists came from several European countries and brought with them broad stylistic diversity combined with a penchant for cross-genre work. The ensemble ascolta has gained an outstanding reputation for its interpretation of contemporary music and has produced several audio-visual projects and group compositions in the past. The finished project has been performed at festivals of contemporary music in Dresden, Stuttgart and Salzburg.

Artistic director: Florian Hölscher; Musical director: Enno Poppe; Curator: Benjamin Schweitzer
Artists: Lillevan (IE), Ruth Anderwald (AT), Leonhard Grond (AT), Astrid S. Klein, Daniel Kötter, Benjamin Schweitzer, Neele Hülcker, Clemens Gadenstätter (AT), Malte Giesen, Ensemble ascolta

Semperdepot Wien, Festival Wien modern, Vienna, 19 Nov. 2014
Theaterhaus Stuttgart, 2015
ARGEKultur, Salzburg (AT), 15 Mar. 2015