La plus que lente is a site-specific work created for the Waschküche of the Art and Cultural Association Semmelweisklinik – once the most important maternity clinic and midwifery pedagogy in Vienna. The Semmelweis Clinic became necessary at the war time because many hospitals in Vienna were needed to treat the wounded during the war.
In La plus que lente, strands of individual memories, feelings and personal idiosyncracies are interwoven into a collective tapestry of sound, choreography and moving image. Each participant chooses their own favourite childhood melody and sings it at least ten times slower than usual, stretching their inner time to its limit. Each song, apart from having its own pace also has its own tonality, rendering audible the resonances of individuality. The vocalisation and its deliberate slowness are visualised by the slow-motion-like movements of the balloons and the natural choreography created unconsciously by each interpreter, revealing their distinctive characters and feelings.
La plus que lente is also an exploration of how different contexts shift the meaning, ambience, mood and sentiment. There are three new virtual auditory contexts superimposed on the given context at the time of the performance in this specific space of Semmelweisklinik. First comes the field recording from Hanoi bustling traffic noise, followed by the nonchalant piano music of C.Debussy, performed by Debussy himself, from which the work draw its title „La plus que lente“ – „the more than slow“. Finally the sound scape of spring with the blackbird songs in the local area where the artists live.
La plus que lente appears in the form of a choir, a deliberate choice rooted in the conviction that the voice is the most intimate and the most personal carriers of memory, emotion and individuality.
This work was commissioned and performed at Wow! Signal Festival in Vienna on the 12th April 2024.
Performers
Ines Fernau
C. Hausch
Flora Schauer
Reinhard Pölzl
Jakob Schauer
Cao Thanh Lan
Gregor Siedl
Siedl/Cao 