Quotation, Psychogeography, and the ‘Journey Form’ in the Music Theatre of Bernhard Lang and Chico Mello

Abstract

A psychogeographic reading of the music theatre works of composers Bernhard Lang and Chico Mello can aid an understanding of the more subtle approaches to ‘quotation’, borrowing, and intertextuality in their works. These aspects are signalled by competing cultural geographies which also indicate the composers' differing experiences of place. This analysis will allow for a greater understanding of competing cultural geographies and concepts of ‘postminimalism’ and ‘postmodernism’ in the two composers' works and borrowing practices. It will also explore the link between the composers' biographies, quotation, and repetition, by introducing concepts of psychogeography, radicant aesthetics, and Nicholas Bourriaud's ‘journey form’ to an aesthetic approach to their forms. It will conclude by examining how the ‘journey form’ might itself be considered a cultural borrowing practice within a psychogeographic framework.

Keywords:

• Bernhard Lang
• Chico Mello
• Postminimalism
• Psychogeography
• Debord
• Bourriaud

Notes

[1] Klangforum Wien are a leading contemporary music group from Austria, whose artistic director is the composer Beat Furrer. They have played an instrumental role in the championing of Austrian contemporary music in the last 20 years. (See http://www.klangforum.at)

[2] Nicolas Bourriaud identifies three types of quotations, which distinguish between different types of outcomes rather than just the re-placing of something in a new context: the first of these he calls quotation or ‘citation’—the familiar act of placing something ‘in quotation marks’; the second outcome he calls ‘inhabiting’; the third he calls ‘using forms’—sampling or using it to make a comment in a way which is wholly dependent on its new context even to the extent of erasing its previous identity. These categories are not discrete but are useful in demarcating the different possible reasons for, and uses of, quotation, and also lay some emphasis on reading the motivation of the author as well as the function of the quotation in its new context (see Bourriaud, 2005, pp. 9, 32–33, 15 & 85–94).

[3] ‘Diese Technik der Wiederholung als Aneignung von Wirklichkeit ermöglicht.’

[4] ‘Das TDW verwendet ausschließlich Loops als Instrument der Differenenz und zeichnet inhaltlich das Bild der Geschichte als unausweichliche Maschine der Folter.’

[5] ‘Die Differenz wiederum macht es uns erst möglich, von der Identität des Gleichen zur Wahrnehmung und Erinnerung einer bestimmten Gestalt fortzuschreiten. Differenzierte Musik verlangt analytisches Bewusstsein, ein sich fortwährendes intellektuelles Loslösen von der Unmittelbarkeit der primären Klangerfahrung.’

[6] ‘In der Erforschung des Wiederholungs-Begriffes ergab sich natürlich auch die Dimension der historischen Wiederholung, besonders der Wiederkehr der kriegerischen Gewalt im Lauf der menschlichen Geschichte. Hinzu kam die politische Situation in Österreich, innerhalb der die Sage von der ordentlichen Beschäftigungspolitik im Dritten Reich dem Theater der Wiederholungen eine neue, zynische Konnotation verlieh. Diese Rückkehr der zynischen Vernunft gab mir den Impuls, mein erstes explizit politisches Stück zu schreiben. (DW2 hatte bereits eine implizite politische Konnotation aufzuweisen).’