Stefan Fraunberger. The Language of Things
Ivan Shelekhov
author
Photographs:
Oleksii Karpovych
The news of Stefan Fraunberger’s performance at the Bouquet Kyiv Stage festival in the courtyard of Saint Sophia Cathedral at the end of summer surprised me a lot. It was possible to hope that a full-fledged touring life would resume this year, except without hope. And it seemed all the more incredible to meet at home the artist, whom I have been following with interest for several years.
Stefan Fraunberger is an electroacoustic composer and musician from Vienna. He also has qualifications in the fields of European philosophy, Arabic, and Oriental studies. Interests and circumstances prompted Stefan to travel–he managed to live and work in Belgium, Romania, a number of Middle Eastern countries, and India.
His main musical instrument is the hammered dulcimer. In its regional variations, it creates a certain cultural continuum–from the Austrian Alps to South Asia, and further in all directions. Mostly, Fraunberger performs with the Persian version of the hammered dulcimer–the santur. Using effects pedals and amplification, he explores the new sound capabilities of this ancestor of the piano. His purpose is to create a kind of synthesizer from an ancient instrument, a loud "spaceship".
Another striking example of such sonic archeology is Fraunberger's long-running project Quellegeister, which can be roughly translated as "source-spirits." In it, he explores the abandoned Baroque organs in the desert Saxon and Landler churches of Transylvania. The composer's interest is chained to the influence of the non-human on man-made things. The sound of the damaged instruments can evoke ghostly associations in the listener. I can add that the last record in this series is one of the few ones that caused a reaction in my cat.
Stefan used to theoretically substantiate his artistic practice. We found shelter from the drizzle under a tree in the famous courtyard with ravens on Reitarska Street. My goal was trying to explain the philosophy of Fraunberger’s language of things in a simple way.
Does it somehow define you, to always be in between the contexts?
Yes, I can definitely say so. To always be in between the contexts is something that cannot be defined. There’s a word in Arabic, al bayan, which in fact means “in-between”. So I could say it’s the “bayan”. The in-between, which is the definition of things not being this or that.
But still “bayan” is translated with “defined”. The limit between the two objectivities defines both of them. So the limit is the definition, not the object. If there is no limitation, then there is no existence, no world.
For me, it seems important to create contexts, not to work with existing ones. That's the way things go: relations define objects. I think the movement of limitations is defining us and our perception of things.
From what I know about you and your music, I can say that you rather play in the genre of your own than stick to the conventions.
As it is said: the demand defines the offer. In some fields of the “holy market”, this might even hold true: if people want to buy cars, then demand defines what they will be offered. Grrr… The effects of this process–desires and demands are creating a certain reality–seem to be catastrophic for the world. I would call it the terror of the situation. In art, it’s a tragedy if this happens. Unfortunately, it mostly happens like that. So the demands of the audience or the “consumer” would finally define the aesthetics of what is “produced”. From my point of view, we need to completely change our worldview from production to creation. I think Nietzsche made this clear in “The Birth of the Tragedy”. If music is a product, if it is produced for the audience, the product will be consumed and over out: ready for the trash bin. Instead, we should create because we want to. That's a high responsibility.
You’re the first time in Kyiv. How did you like to interact with the audience and the local context? What did you want them to recall or to relate to?
I feel fine with the language of things. In case a relation is created, I try to put it in the limits of the language of things. A part of this language I developed for this instrument, the hammered dulcimer, the santur. It relates to me, so I relate it to others. First of all, I liked its sound as it is used in different traditions. That’s why I got into it but never learned the traditions in detail. In contrast to some of my other works, I do tune it. Also yesterday I tuned it to a certain mode, the dastgāh–the Persian mode Šur. Which is different than those we normally have. Still, I’m not relating to the Persian tradition, cause they play a completely different style, and the tuning system could be Indian or Rebetiko (Greek) as well.
So my intention is to develop some kind of language, being related to amplification. My aim is to create certain limitations. If the hammered dulcimer or the santur is amplified, you have a wholly different sound. You just have the electromagnetic vibrations of the strings. And with this, you can do different things. Whatever you want! So it’s not just the instrument and the strings. It’s also the loudspeakers speaking. And again it’s in between, to play the instrument. Don’t just let the computer do it or have fancy tools and products, let ‘em roll and feel like a hero. OK [laughs]. And you think you’re playing live! It’s interesting, performing live with an instrument without falling into dogmas of how to do things and how not to do things.
Finally, a lot of my work is creating new instruments, being based on relating wholly different technical, cultural, and ontological approaches.
“I try to define the language of things and let them talk in-between”
Yesterday in this very meditative space inside the court of this Orthodox church, during the performance at Bouquet Kyiv Stage, things appeared to be a ritual with form and meaning. Something else than the usual authenticity could take place. This whole monastic notion of the place created a relation between things, the people that were there, and the movement of limitations, which finally is a kind of vibration.
You are a critic of the term ‘’cultural appropriation’’.
If you take the term ‘’cultural appropriation’’ in its initial sense coming from ethnology, coming from postcolonial studies, it just means “don’t steal something that you’re not in relation to’’. But If you know about the culture, if you have a relation to it, that’s not called cultural appropriation by definition.
As always things got perverted and people, not having the necessary education, not knowing too much about postcolonial studies, would think anything outside of universal Western culture is cultural. And if you intervene with it, then it’s cultural appropriation. This is again some kind of colonialism. Because you take the colonial culture as universal and everything else is being protected like this raven in the cage [points at the raven literally]. Culture being protected like in the zoo. And mostly it’s also not so real, cause anyhow the whole world is covered with the same European cosmology till now. The notion of different cultures is slightly nostalgic. There are different languages, and people having different habits, but not in the sense of the 19th century. Then the human world consisted of completely different cultures. But through globalisation, the world was missionised with a certain kind of technology. The whole naturalistic Euro-religion of Enlightenment was flattening the world. Isn’t it an irony that those that missionised the planet with the knowledge of the world being round finally made it flat?
Let’s talk about the perception of your music by the musicians, who work in the tradition of maqam or dastgah. In particular, those of them who also have worked with you. What do they think of your experiments?
It really depends on the people. Some people being into maqam music are conservative in their traditions, they don't like the matter to be experimented–as it seems to be in any classical form of music. But again it’s also not theirs, they’re stuck in certain traditions. They already come from somewhere, these traditions, shaped somehow. I’m not even saying that I’m in that context.
Then the others, who know about those traditions and can also apply them, are fully open to going different directions. Applying different ideas, putting things more in the modal context of music. To go more into the perception of sound than on dogmatic rules of melodic variations. Finally, culture is not a fundamental lockdown… Some time ago I created this ensemble, Ornamental Noise, which consists of three santurs. One santur is played by an Austrian drummer. I just gave him my second instrument, I showed him how it's played. I had to tune the instrument for him.
He was totally new to this instrument?
Yeah, but he is a good drummer, so anyhow he can play it quite well. The other is a Persian guy. And then there are still two Kurdish people from Turkish Kurdistan. Sakina Teyna, she is a great singer, applying a very good intonation, and Özgün Yarar, he’s a ney player. But they’re both not academically taught. They just learned it on their own, from their oral traditions. They have a good feeling.
You often use your own terms in the theoretical explanations of what you do. You also often mention ‘’non-human actors’’. Like ‘’the field of the uncanny’’, ‘’the alien forces’’. Does it somehow correspond culturally with the field of mysticism? You also quote Sufi mystics of the past. Does it work as cultural markers?
I think, yes, but not in the classical sense. Because we tend to think that mysticism, agnosticism has the notion that we’re not from this world. And I say, maybe we’re not on this world, but we’re from it? It’s more like the mysticism of materialism. Not materialism but like… It’s the mysticism of materiality.
The matter...
Yeah, but not like the materialism in the classic scientific sense, but materiality, which goes beyond. Materiality could be for example vibrations not being defined by hearing. So it goes beyond and it’s still related to the empirical domain.
Then comes to mind the notion of ‘’human’’ and ‘’non-human’’. So what’s that weird distinction: human and non-human? The whole world is non-human. If we define it like this, it is always a problem that we have this division of humans being Culture and the world being Nature. Our whole definition of nature is becoming more and more a problem. So we should just get rid of nature. Alright, let’s just dump the blue planet and the globe! Because it’s all human perception producing this division. It’s the interpretation of how we want things to be. You can call it the nature-religion. Like science being nature-religion.
How to get a different notion of things? Not just theoretically. But how can we really get in touch with materiality, not just subordinate the material world to our needs? That is our problem nowadays. We produce lots of technology. We have this technology all around, so we need certain surroundings that sustain this technology. For example, a computer. We cannot just put it somewhere in the forest, because it rains on the computer. We need a certain climate for a computer, a changed climate. And then suddenly the whole surroundings we have are made for technology, not for us. So this gets in a very strange circle of culture on the one hand, and nature on the other hand. Catastrophic feedback.
I think it's more the European interpretation of Sufism being so out of this world. Like we’re not in this world, we’re not physical bodies, and we are just some mystical shadows. This is a European classification. So if you look at different branches of Sufism, it can be down to Earth. It can mean being in relation to animals, being in relation to the world. And not dreaming of... whatever.
Finally today I would define mysticism as getting down to Earth, not in a sense of defining a territory or a culture, but just being on Earth. This is way more alien than dreaming about space and Mars. Actually, we live on Mars: we’re caught in screens, we’re moving in cars, we’re in urban surroundings, living like in a desert. I think the way more progressive than to rule the material world with our illusions of what we think it is, is to get down to Earth and to find our relation to it. This needs rituals and it needs a relation to the world, not just humans interacting in a post-apocalyptic paradise. We need to land, wherever, doesn’t matter where.
“Modernity is the mysticism of becoming Mars.”
It pre-answers the question that I planned to ask about your critique of Modernity. As far as I understand, the opposite, which you prefer is the traditional cultural microclimates that existed before.
What I imagine when you talk about this, that there is some feature–to give everything a name, to put everything on a shelf. And in a way make it poorer in a sense of meaning.
My association with it is mainstream media and mainstream music business vs other niches. The music that cannot be marketed very well or that lacks some kind of description or definition.
Yeah, if you define things, then they have a name, as you said. And if you give them a name, then things are labeled. Then you give them a can. To give things a norm, to objectify them, and to put them outside the limit of yourself. So you put them outside the limit of culture because the culture is your inner self. That’s the cult of authenticity. You limit yourself away from the object. Not being the limit means being part of a dead-end-definition. It means being symmetric ashes. Our modern definition of culture is like ashes, different forms of life being burnt to pure ashes, to be exhibited in the museum.
It’s this whole notion of subject vs object, being the core of European cosmology, trying to define everything. So we think we need objectivity. This method was created through language. Some people came to the conclusion, that we have objects, subjects, and a systematic language through which we objectify things to ashes. During Renaissance times we still had this notion of being in between. The Age of Reason or the Age of Enlightenment proved to be a counter-Renaissance. Renaissance was replaced with objective definitions. This happened mainly in Britain, France, Germany maybe. Then it was carried via colonialism to the “rest of the world”. Now we all have just this one cosmology of the nature-religion, being Modernity.
Modernity became to be a very successful counter-religion. The same as Christianity was very successful. The same as Islam is very successful. So it’s another counter-religion. Religion normally gave the material world a soul, a spirit, whereas science said that materia doesn't have a spirit. That’s the only difference we can really make out between modernity and pre-modernity. Modernity is the mysticism of becoming Mars.
In the end, I like to go back from theory to practice and talk about your interests in music. What in the music world, like as it’s separated from the rest, if it’s necessary, draws your attention today? What are your next intentions to do within this?
I think we should be very attentive not to judge music by political or ideological terms. Mostly, modern music is related to the “holy market” by means of political identification. We should leave this aside to be able to hear the music, to be able to relate to the language of things. Still, there are lots of great artists out there, great music, I wouldn't want to select… I heard things outside the realm of culture that touched me. Birds. A blind man playing a string on some wood in Central India, his grandson took care of collecting coins. Not Nature. Well, it’s hard to say what’s good… Maybe we have lost some kind of sense for what’s really important.