Fourteenth

This entry will conclude my project on Viennese audio culture. The audio here can be found on the U4 U-Bahn line between Heitzing and Karlsplat, as well as on a stroll down Kärntner Straße any day of the year. If you may, hear them for yourselves.

Portrait No. 6 - Danke Wien

Twelfth

Although this is a theme I have been working on for quite some time, today it seemed to find a home here in this city. I was struck with its tragedy. Vienna, and Austria as a whole have such a rich and vibrant history, full of art and accomplishment, but I can not help but feel the bruises that lie around here as well. This song is a simple lament for those parts of Vienna that hurt, for those parts, those histories, those people who did not or cannot find healing.


Lament No. 1

Eleventh

In 1938 the Nazi party began construction of their largest and most horrific instrument of death. Over the next seven years, Mauthausen would work, torture and put to death more than 250,000 political dissidents, homosexuals, outsiders, Russians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma, and Jews. This is a meditation on what took place there. The audio is taken from two sources, the "Wiener Graben," a death quarry operated on the backs of the prisoners, and a thirty second clip from inside the gas chamber.

Meditation No. 1

Tenth

This post is comprised of audio taken from a trip to the Wachau region of Austria. It includes bits from our bus ride, an eleventh century Benedictine monastery, a long flight of stairs, a 200 year old wine cellar, a thunderstorm in a white wine vineyard and other surprises.

Wachau

Wine and churches

Ninth

This is a theme I have been working on for a while. It still needs some work. The sample was taken from my favorite cafe as well as a mass and the sound of me walking up a flight of stairs.

Theme

Eighth

For this installment I used musical artifacts collected from around the city. Music is everywhere here, leaking through the floorboards, exploding from Gothic arches, floating into my room and landing on my pillow. Take a peek.

Hidden Music

Much Love.

Seventh

Hallo

Time for a quick update.

A few pictures of St. stephens Cathedras, where the audio portrait below was taken.







A picture of my favorite cafe. Kleines Cafe.



The street that we live one. Altegasse.



More audio is soon to follow.

RGL

O yes, I bought an accordian today at the open air market for 60 Euro.

Sixth

Guten tag

Here is the next instalment. At is comprised of sounds taken from Stephendom at the very heart of the city of Vienna.


St. Stephens Mass

i will put some pictures up sometime of the cathedral so you can get an idea of what you are hearing.

love to you all.

Rob

Fifth

Hallo.

A new post will be coming very soon. it is a piece with source material from a mass at Stephensdom here in the heart of Vienna. Servus!

Rob

Fourth

Here is my first audio portrait. It documents my 30 hour trip to Vienna. Some sounds that you will hear include babies wailing, my conversation with an attendant, an airport announcement in Hindi, the birds outside my apartment in Wein, and other sounds. I would strongly recommend using headphones to listen to this, you will get a much clearer picture that way.


It's gunna be close.

here are some pictures as well.


View from my room window.


Schonbrun palace (about 10 minutes walk from my apartment).


My pillow (dont ask me who she is, i dont know).

Third

I am now on my way and have captured some interesting sounds durring my long flights through Newark, and London. I will edit them together and upload them when I get to vienna so that you can hear that which I have heard. Love to all.

Rob

Second

I BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF NOISE

Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, We find it fascinating. The sound of a Truck fifty miles an hour. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as "sound effects" recorded on film... Given four film phonographs, we can compose ad perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat, and landslide.

-John Cage, from "The Future of Music: Credo"

First

But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God-so, better is it to perrish in that howling infinit, than be ingloriously dasched upon the lee, even if that were safety!

-Herman Mellville