Gustav Mahler Festival 2011

In April we were invited by departure to be part of the lied lab 2011: gustav mahler festival at the Radio Kulturhaus in Vienna. On the one hand we were really stoked to visualize an evening of classical music but on the other hand we got a llittle scared too. Usually, when we are doing visuals we are faced with a (most certainly drunken) party crowd, dancing to electronic music. So as their perception is blurry anyway, making mistakes is allowed. This time … it was different.

As our sense for classical music is a bit shallow, we started to research on Gustav Mahler as a person and his incitement to compose. After a while we realised that we were dealing with a totally devastated and desperate character. One quote by Sigmund Freud was essential for our final concept: “It was like digging a tunnel through a convoluted mysterious building.” Every song of the lieder cycle should illustrate another corner of Gustav Mahlers mind and with every visualisation another piece of the puzzle will be revealed, bringing the audience closer to our personal interpretation of Gustav Mahlers being. Every song adds an element of the the visualization to the illustration so that in the end you have a vague silhouette of this complex character. which looks pretty weird … just as he was.

Thanks to talented Oliver_S from Berlin who made this awesome remix for the Berliner Philharmoniker Remix Contest and letting us use it for our little visual cut. Check out his work on Soundcloud (soundcloud.com/musicbyoliver_s) and his label brothersinlove.com