Bring your headphones to the exhibition space! By invitation of the Kunstforum, the writer Natascha Gangl and Rdeča Raketa, the electronic music duo of the composers Maja Osojnik & Matija Schellander, have set a selection of Roberto Matta's paintings into sound.

Matta referred to his pictures as "Cosmic Strips", in which he fused opposites, collided macrocosm and microcosm and created futuristic series of images. Natascha Gangl & Rdeča Raketa now translate selected images further into sound and text, picking up on Matta's acoustic fantasies and his love for language games, manifestos and surreal poetry.

Natascha Gangl, Maja Osojnik und Matija Schellander have been developing audio pieces, live performances, artworks, exhibitions and discourse formats under the title "Klangcomic /Soundcomic" since 2016. Just as word and image merge in comics, spoken word and sound merge here: sound becomes language, language becomes sound. Contemporary composition meets the literary experiment. Styles are eclectically combined, madrigals meets children's book meets techno meets anagram meets hip-hop meets essay – ad infinitum  – high culture, pop culture, subculture merge into psychedelic journeys in fields of sound.

The three artists explore the possibilities of transforming images into music and visualizing sound in artworks. They have previously created sound comics for works by Unica Zürn and Anestis Logothetis. In 2018, Maja Osojnik founded the label "MAMKA RECORDS" and has been releasing sound comics on vinyl, art books & prints in small editions.

 

 

to the sound comics

 
 
 
VITAS
Natascha Gangl, *1986, writer, playwright and director. Gangl explores language in all its aggregate states: written, directed, drawn, spoken, performed - on theater stages, in concert and exhibition spaces, in radio formats such as radio plays, features and radio essays, in books, on record, using techniques such as montage, cut-ups and anagrams. Studied philosophy at the University of Vienna, dramatic writing at the DRAMA FORUM Graz, assisted and edited texts for Christoph Schlingensief, was resident playwright at the Staatstheater Mainz. Her works, some of which are multilingual, have been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships (including the Heimrad-Bäcker-Förderpreis, Heidelberg Stückemarkt Prize, Young Literature Prize by the City of Graz). After years in Mexico and Spain, she now lives and works in Vienna, where she develops object theater performances with the collective "Spitzwegerich" (Outstanding Artist Award 22). With the composers Maja Osojnik and Matija Schellander, she creates live performances, artworks, exhibitions and radio plays under the title "Soundcomic", which were awarded with the Ö1 Prize for the Best Original Radio Play 2020 and the 1st Prize of the Berlin Radio Play Festival 2018. Gangl taught at the Institute for Language Arts at the Angewandte, at the school for poetry, she is part of rua. cooperative for text and direction. She has published the books: Wendy fährt nach Mexiko, Ritter, 2015, Das Spiel von der Einverleibung, starfruit publications, 2020. http://gangl.klingt.org
MAJA OSOJNIK, *1976 born in Slovenia, lives and works in Vienna, Austria as a singer, composer, improvising electroacoustic musician, sound artist, producer, mostly using voice, paetzold bass recorders, field recordings, DJ-CDs, tapes and other lo-fi electronic devices, toys, trash and found objects. Moving in limbo between analogue and digital art, virtual and real spaces, she tries to expand, deconstruct and reinterpret the tonal spectra of mentioned instruments and to assign them new roles – a process reminiscent of building anagrams. In her Music she combines love for simple songs, experimental electro-acoustic, abstract music, early and contemporary classical music as well as elements and forms of noise and rock. The real, the surreal, the fragility, in which both the destructive, abysmal, dark phantasm, but also the beauty, the elegance, the strength are depicting certainty, manifest another engine that defines Maja's musical creation. She composes music for dance, theater, film, radio plays, sound installations and various ensembles and orchestras and writes lyrics, that she performs with her bands. In 2018 Maja started a new label MAMKA RECORDS, which is dedicated to the publication of high quality self-produced sound recordings in small hand-made series. Since then, Maja has also devoted more focus to two of her great passions, the printing and production of graphic sound scores. Her solo performances, works and formations, ao. Rdeča Raketa, ZSAMM, Broken.Heart.Collector, All.The.Terms.We.Are, Maja Osojnik Band, Subshrubs, Low Frequency Orchestra etc. were presented at various international festivals. https://maja.klingt.org
Matija Schellander was born in Ludmannsdorf-Bilčovs in 1981. He works with instruments as well as "field recordings", in the studio and on stage. Timbre, sampling and a moving, organic sound image are central to sound as an independent artistic and narrative element.
He lives and works as a composer, double bass player and electronic musician in Vienna and composes for music ensembles, theater, contemporary dance and film. Together with Maja Osojnik, he is part of the electro-acoustic duo Rdeča Raketa, works regularly with the Italian sound artist Attila Faravelli and runs the trio Foreign Correspondents with Ryu Hankil from Seoul (electronic instruments, typewriter) and Noid (cello) from Vienna. His work and tours have taken him all over Europe, North America and Asia. He has worked with theater directors Ivna Zic and FX Mayr for many years, including at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Theater am Neumarkt Zurich, Theater Basel, Schauspielhaus Graz and Schauspiel Stuttgart.
He has produced numerous works for radio: Soundcomics with Natascha Gangl & Rdeča Raketa, the radio play "Die Politiker" by Wolfram Lotz for SWR2. Since 2021 he has been part of the "Hörspiel-Hacking" radio art collective, together with Blablabor (Reto Friedman & Anette Schmucki) and Chrstina Ertl-Shirley. http://matija.klingt.org
RDEČA RAKETA is the duo of Maja Osojnik and Matija Schellander, both internationally active musicians and composers living in Vienna, who have experience with abstract electroacoustic improvisation, contemporary compositions and various other musical styles. Rdeča Raketa pursue sound science and electroacoustic research. The result is acoustic poetry that sometimes breaks with all musicality to create sound paintings that turn listening habits and contemporary cultural codes upside down - in cinemas and concert halls, theater spaces and installations. Rdeča Raketa combines abstract electronic sounds with heavy beats, inspired by acousmatic music, industrial and hip-hop. The artful interweaving of spoken and sung language (based on Osojnik's texts) merges with the collaged sound material. Modular synthesizers and cut-up samples mingle with manipulated CD players and recordings of acoustic instruments and field recordings; together with elaborate sound processing, the result is an excitingly heterogeneous mixture. Rdeča Raketa's recordings: Old Girl, Old Boy (Mosz Rec, 2010), Wir werden (God Rec, 2013) and ..and cannot reach the silence, (Ventil Rec & Mamka Rec 2021). https://rdecaraketa.klingt.org/