• Project: MESO / Involving Systems Werkschau
• Date: December 2003 - February 2004
• Client: OK Zentrum Linz
• Contractor: Roland Schöny
• Location: OK Zentrum Linz

The series “O.K spektral” presents the media design groups MESO and Involving Systems in the form of a first major show of works. The general theme conjoining the individual exhibition sequences is the question of the production conditions of sounds in between DJ culture, new electronics and pop radio. What is presented is not only the constantly growing range of works by a working group organized camouflage-like, whose members collaborate in various formations and appear under different types of labels.

The exhibition leads into a world of devices and interactively programmed installations demonstrating current composition procedures in the area of electronics and digitally remixed music and inviting a playfully analytical closer look at the structures of the individual systems. Stages of technological innovation are mapped and references are delineated to the scenes of the patchwork distribution of pop subcultures that experimentally and critically approach the possibilities of generating music and combining sounds with turntables or powerbooks, with controllers, filters or samplers. At the same time, the history and expressiveness of the hardware design of record players, computers or sound systems in the broadest sense are also brought into play. Visual works are included as well, such as videos or digital prints, the visual organization of which is derived from the logic of working creatively on the screen.

Space is thus given to niches and transitions that meanwhile belong to the common parameters of media culture. This development has also led to an expansion or a blurring of identities on the side of the producers. The label MESO thus always describes the role of a supporting mothership, whereas Involving Systems and labels such as Ovalima Aero Aero Deco or Dienststelle that dock onto it stand almost like a sign for these kinds of related expansions.

The spatial geographic headquarters of MESO and Involving Systems is located in a loft just a short walk away from the main train station in Frankfurt am Main and thus in the immediate proximity of one of the densest traffic nodes in Europe. This infrastructure here is arranged less for staying for any length of time than for a large transit capacity.

The installation Heavy Rotation Revisor, for example, which was originally developed for the Seven Hills millennium exhibition in Berlin, conjoins a subversive, critical approach to the radio as one of the central new media of the 20th century, making it possible to enter into a permanently changing composition game at the same time. The theoretical superstructure of this game with a critical impetus is interfaced with the invitation to allow a laissez-faire principle to reign with respect to the world outside that functions according to commercially oriented conditions and to join together and layer sounds and noises like an endless puzzle.

Mutable Muzzy Musics can be operated with a similar composure. Segments of music pieces from the associates of the Frankfurt electronics label Mille Plateaux can be looped and remixed beyond a usually strictly context-determined perception. At the same time, the accompanying projections follow the aesthetics of an old-school database style. These kinds of settings defined by an almost nostalgic retro-consciousness are – similarly to the Bootleg Design Objects in the exhibition – reminiscent of Brechtian alienation effects. It seems as though certain phenomena in the field of new electronics can first be captured by impeding the constantly phantomizing present.

Worknet – gleich am Eingang zur Ausstellung – ist eine Zeitleiste, welche die Geschichte MESOs illustriert. Die Wand versammelt Schnappschüsse von kommerziellen und freien Projekten, die die Gesamtbreite der bei MESO entstandenen Arbeiten anreißen.
Der über die gesamte Länge des Gangs gezogene Kabelstrang versorgt alle gezeigten Arbeiten mit elektrischem Strom. Die Kabel sind sichtbar verlegt, die Steckdosen nach Jahren sortiert angebracht. Der Besucherstrom läuft analog dem elektrischen Strom. Über das Verfolgen der sichtbar verlegten Stromkabel können die Arbeiten zugeordnet werden. Der funktionalen Ebene wird eine semantische Ebene zugefügt. Das Ziehen der Stecker während der Ausstellung ist dennoch nicht gestattet.

Ein zentrales Ausstellungsobjekt dieser Werkschau ist der Heavy Rotation Revisor, dieser erlaubt es den BesucherInnen, das laufende Radioprogramm zu remixen. Dem Heavy Rotation-Prinzip moderner Radiosender wird ein konstanter Fluss von Revision und Improvisation entgegengesetzt. Kurze Soundschnipsel können auf einen Kreis gezogen werden, wo sie von einem passierenden Radarstrahl abgespielt werden.

Pitch on Pole dient der Verschiebung des Weltbildes. Jede flache Weltkarte ist eine Lüge. Trotzdem ist die Weltkarte nach wie vor Symbol für universelle Stabilität. Aber die Welt hat weder ein “Oben” noch ein “Unten” und sie ist auch nicht stabil. Jede Weltkarte, die man mit Pitch on Pole produziert, wird genauso wahr sein wie die, die man schon kennt, da Pitch on Pole dieselbe Projektionsmethode verwendet, nur mit anderen Polen.

Bei Mutable Muzzy Musics wird die lineare Struktur von originären Musikstücken zugunsten eines beliebig lange anhaltenden Remixes aufgelöst. Die Zeitachse der grafisch visualiserten Dramaturgie jedes Tracks wird zum Samplepool, aus dem beiläufig eine neue Komposition entsteht.

O.K spektral Kino:

Stefan Ammon (MESO)

Martin Bott (Involving Systems)

Sebastian Gregor (MESO)

Michael Höpfel (MESO)

Joreg (MESO)