Chris Sullivan keeps us informed on the latest from Vienna at the Morning Line – after he's finished sheltering from a decidely unseasonal downpour that is.
Day two of The Morning Line in Vienna and Francesca Von Habsburg, being the magnanimous lady that she is, bought lunch for the whole crew of artists and organisers at the Italian bistro, L’Osteria del Collio, in the middle of Vienna.
But we were delayed en route by a rainstorm of biblical proportions that caused the wife and I, both dressed for summer, to take shelter under a tiny ledge. After 47 minutes of tutting at the bad weather we were so bored we decided to break cover and make a run for it. We made it a mere 10 metres and ducked into a nearby café, quite literally soaked to the skin. The rain was so bad I expected frogs to fall from the sky. Worst of all, we missed lunch.
That afternoon, it was time for The Morning Line symposium in which artists such as Franz Pomassl, Zavoloko and Finnbogi Petursson discuss the origins of their sonic art while the architects Ben Aranda and Chris Lasch explain its structural complexities.
I still hadn’t dried out so I went back to the hotel for a bath to stave off hypothermia.
The rain returned in the evening, putting a damper on the proceedings but not enough to stop eminent Japanese sound architect, 76-year-old Yasunao Tone, from purveying a complex work that sounded like a thousand angry video games at war with each other.
Jakob Polacsek / T-B A21, 2011
Carsten Nicolai was next followed by the Viennese TML curator, Franz Pomassl, whose minimal throbbing compositions seemed at one with the rather organic Morning Line.
During the latter’s performance about 30 police vans turned up containing a phalanx of Viennese cops who surrounded the square, their lights on full beam ominously directed at The Morning Line.
After a while, possibly through boredom, they decided to drive round and round the platz for a while until they either lost interest or felt a little dizzy, and left us in peace without any explanation. Perhaps the neighbours had complained that the stereo was too loud.
Afterwards, the party was at FLUC, a subway-turned-nightclub that, although a bit minimalist for my tastes, certainly suited the medium.
Franz Pomassl was up again, this time with a set that sounded like dub techno stripped to its barest bones. Next up was the experimental Icelandic combo, Ghost Digital, comprising the hilarious Sigur Ros remixer Curver, former Sugar Cube mainman Einar and sonic visionary, Finnbogi Petursson.
They impressed me with a mad bag of sounds that was kind of minimal punk electro dub but not, featuring huge soundscapes interspersed with the echoing sounds of metal on metal while vocalist Einar screamed down the microphone and jumped around like a man possessed. Good stuff.
In the morning we visited the Belvedere museum, which not only showcases the work of Viennese secessionist genius Gustav Klimt (1862 –1918) but also an utterly breathtaking exhibition of the work of Egon Schiele (1890–1918).
After walking around Vienna, which although preserved in aspic is the fulcrum of experimental art and sound, and seeing the likes of Stadpark station and the Secession Museum and considering the music of Mozart, Haydn, Strauss, Beethoven and Brahms (who all considered the city their spiritual home) I twigged: Vienna is bloody marvellous and is the perfect home for such an ambitious and avant-garde exercise as The Morning Line.
I also enjoy the fact that the city Vienna was built with the money (12 tons of silver) that Duke Leopold V the Virtuous got from ransoming his prisoner: English Crusading twat, Richard the Lionheart.
Leopold was excommunicated for capturing a crusader but I don’t think he was that bothered. A city founded with such exemplary behaviour, should be celebrated.
The Morning Line is in Vienna until November 2011. Find out more from www.tba21.org
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