On and On and Off
(2024)
With Marla Hlady
Commissioned by Kunstradio, ORF, Vienna.
This project continues with the idea of working with choirs that began with the Swan Song project from 2019 (installation and publication).
A piece about commuting.
From home to work. From work to home. You get on the bus, train, plane, bike. You get off the bus, train, plane, bike. Even your feet are a mode of transport.
Transportation gets you from one place to another. From point A to point B. Arrivals and Departures. Movement with purpose. Kinetics with intent.
But sometimes you get on and it goes on and on and on and on and on. It feels like you might never get off.
You are destined to destinations. A life in transit, a life on transit. The trip can sometimes seem interminable, then you reach the terminus.
These are not conventional choirs that follow a score in unison, and all are singing at the same time and in the same space. This unusual choir asked each participant to interpret the set of instructions listed below in their own way.
The focus is on commutes from home to work and back. More broadly stated, it’s about the relationship between life and work, about work-life balance.
From the typical scenario involving traffic congestion to the transition from bedroom to home office, work is a mindset. In order to examine this condition from a playful perspective we searched for both differences and commonalities in everyday individual experiences.
We searched for the underlying rhythms that drive us—drive us to work, drive us home, drive us mad.
Participants: Christa Eder, Hans Groiss, Claudia Gschweitl, Monika Kalcsics, Ulrike Leitner, Karin Linortner, Susanna Niedermayr, Ursula Scheidle, Anna Soucek, Alexander Tschernek, Mia Kirsty Weisz, Elisabeth Zimmermann, Stefanie Zussner