Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine,Peter Tscherkassky, Austria, 2005, 35mm, 17'
The hero of Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine is easy to identify. Walking down the street unknowingly, he suddenly realizes that he is not only subject to the gruesome moods of several spectators but also at the mercy of the filmmaker. He defends himself heroically, but is condemned to the gallows, where he dies a filmic death through a tearing of the film itself. Our hero then descends into Hades, the realm of shades. Here, in the underground of cinematography, he encounters innumerable printing instructions, the means whereby the existence of every filmic image is made possible. In other words, our hero encounters the conditions of his own possibility, the conditions of his very existence as a filmic shade. “Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine is an attempt to transform a Roman Western into a Greek tragedy.“
Peter Tscherkassky
Gustav“My father always wanted a boy,” explains Eva Jantschitsch, “so he used to call me 'Gustav' until I was at least three.” The 26-year-old Austrian fine arts student seems to translate anarchist praxis into audacious - yet intimate - synth rock. Though actually, there is a lot more to it. Unlike most post-Le Tigre satellites, whether rhyming along to Hakim Bey, droning against patriarchy, or recalling Carlo Guliani (who was killed at the GB conference in Genoa), Jantschitsch’s approach is both non-reactionary and subtly humorous. Indeed, her sunny, heavily accented voice, wrapped in a digital orchestral sound, often cracks as if she can't help laughing, welled up with the belief that we can ultimately make a so-called 'better world'. “Let's keep it blurred and kitschy,” she jokes.
To make it clear: we are dealing with a talented singer and producer used to great many performances in various groups and collectives in which various members both compose and play their music. Unfortunately, however, the 'female singer' epithet reduces Eva Jantschitsch to a mere vocalist, something which this artist does not hold with at all. The Gustav project thus stems from an emancipatory need to exist as a complete authoress. At the same time, the male name of the project neutralises the original moment of a female at the forefront of the predominantly male backdrop that is music scene/industry, which in itself provides the possibility for different scenarios. The electronic music scene has an overwhelmingly masculine countenance: organisers, writers, sound designers, journalists, reviewers etc., are for the most part men. This exerts a strong influence on creative work and modes of expression, despite the possibilities and abilities that allow the female artist to join such a dominancy-characterised context. Therefore Jantschitsch believes that events, such as Ladyfest as well as other cities of women, are unconditionally essential as projects that revolt against the general practise of the Cultural Industry.
“Save the whales, overthrow the system,” urges Gustav, laying out the path towards a non-consumptive way of life. By citing Brian Eno, Talking Heads, Nina Simone, Tom Waits and Laurie Anderson as musical influences, she differs from contemporary IDM musicians, and her aired intimate/active synth draws out an authentic canvas on which both activist as well as humorously ironic colours are painted. Indeed, even though from a completely different conceptual realm than someone who is enthusiastic about revolution, post-feminist networks and the importance of the Indymedia platform, the Viennese Fritz Ostermayer (Mego) is somewhat similar to Gustav. Jantschitsch herself admits that she finds his method of searching for fragments of songs rather than creating pop music compelling. A pop song – if it 'happens' – is merely the result of an incidence or a chance.
Radically individual, neither Eva Jantschitsch nor Gustav invariably triggers negotiations with connotations of the notion, the idea, and the image of ‘woman’ when she becomes an image on stage or in the media. It is an extremely schizophrenic position when Gustav is repeatedly thrown back to ‘being-object’ despite her intense ‘becoming-subject’.“As a woman on the stage I am merely a concept….”
Nina Spavatsky
Concert is organised in co-produciton wih the City of Women festival.