Despite not being spattered with shit, I enjoyed Extreme Rituals immensely.
One performance, in particular, I thought represented Schimpfluch style at its most true to form and at its most valuable.
Topless, Joke Lanz and Ute Waldhausen slapped and caressed each other with microphones attached to their hands, using feedback and the sound of their confrontation to craft a fractious, spiky composition. I forget who threw the first punch, but the vigor with which they went at each other, not to mention the toplessness, made this set the weekend's most transgressive in the old school sense. It's power came from the way Lanz and Waldhausen appeared to compress the dynamic contours of a whole relationship, alternately tender and abusive, collaborative and destructive, into their drama. One of the oldest arguments in favour of transgressive art - one cited by Throbbing Gristle and Mike Dando, among others - is that it serves as a tool for the existentialist. By offending you, it makes you aware that you've been conditioned to be offended, and challenges you to take control of your reactions. But graphic depositions of sexual abuse, or Second World War atrocities, have been so common for so long - in the world of harsh noise at least, which is where Schimpfluch fans tend to reside - that they've lost their power to shock and become mere accessories of genre, redundant next to a mainstream culture already saturated by pornography and violence. Lanz and Waldhausen's performance was rare, then, in that it shocked - and shocked into reflection, not disgust.
In February 2013 I went back to Cairo to lead a one-week workshop on sound art called 'The Art of Noise'. It was almost like going back home, when meeting my driver Mohamed at Cairo airport. Many intense memories came back to my mind from my five months residency last year in the big Nile city.
The workshop was curated by Yara Mekawei with financial support from Swiss Arts Council.
All participants did a fantastic job. We spent an incredible creative and warm hearted friendly week together. Thank you so much for this great experience:
YARA MEKAWEI
SARAH SELIMAN
OLA SAAD
MIRIAM NESSLER
MUHAMMED SALEM YOUSSEF
MAHMOUD MAGDE
MAHMOUD TAREK
KAREEM OSMAN
Art of Noise Workshop
Working at 100copies sound studio
Working at 100copies sound studio
Blind walk Downtown Cairo
Ola Saad
Kareem Osman & Yara Mekawei
Ramsay & Sara Seliman
Mahmoud Refat & Joke Lanz
Opening speech at final workshop concert
Mahmoud Magde aka Snoopy
Audience
Please check out some of the works created during the workshop:
Many thanks to: All the participants, Yara Mekawei, Sarah Seliman, Miriam Nessler, Ola Saad, Kareem Osman, Muhammed Salem Youssef, Mahmoud Magde, Mahmoud Tarek, Marcel Derek Ramsay, Weaam El Masry, Maysoon Mahfoudh, Hebba Sherif, Alan Bishop, Mahmoud Refat and his 100copies team, Derek Holzer (for initial advice and support).
photos by Yara Mekawei, Marcel Derek Ramsay, Joke Lanz
