Readymade Grüüschschsch — Zum Hörwissen (in) der Performancekunst
(2019)

This video documentation conveys the connection between the exhibition as an interactive listening space with the exhibited video work "Mind the Sound" and the live performance and discussion taking place within this framework. In their first joint work, sound and performance artists Janine Eisenächer and Steffi Weismann address the relevance of noises and sounds that are created through performance actions with materials and things and go on to ask about aural knowledge in performance art. How do the material noises or sounds generated in each case influence the course of a performance? How do we perceive the space? What do we learn about everyday objects and how do we encounter them when we playfully discover their acoustic potential and listen to them? What remains of a performance that focuses on the production of noises or sounds? And which sounds do we remember at all? The performance exhibition LEFTOVER, curated by Livio Beyeler, explores the artistic potential of what remains. The exhibition is a proposal to find performative bridges to conversational relics and to transfer these into a formal economy of performance art. For READYMADE GRÜÜÜSCHSCH - Eisenächer and Weismann developed a performative conversation format dedicated to listening to sound-practical actions and material sounds of experienced performances. On their way from Berlin to Zurich, they made a stop at the Amerbachstudios in Basel, where they recorded three half-hour video interviews with the performance artists Markus Goessi, Pascale Grau, Muda Mathis, Irene Maag, Barbara Nägelin and Andrea Saemann. They presented an edited short form of these dialogs on a screen with headphones in the exhibition space. They also invited Lara Russi and Livio Beyeler to perform a dialogical reminiscence on the subject live in front of an audience. In addition, they transformed the TART into a listening room that offered visitors opportunities for performative interaction with various objects and materials based on concrete instructions for action and listening. In their live performance in the evening, Eisenächer and Weismann condensed the experiences gathered throughout the day by using a selection of objects and materials to carry out various sound-practical actions in the interior, exterior and intermediate spaces of the TART. The resulting "GRÜÜÜSCHSCH sculptures" ("GRÜÜÜSCHSCH-Readymades") then became part of the exhibition.