D-Es-C-H
1 channel video, 12:04min, loop, 16:9, stereo, color — 2022
Installation View: D-ES-C-H (2022), DSCH I+II, Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, Germany (2023). A group exhibition of the Expanded Cinema class by Clemens von Wedemeyer and Mareike Bernien in collaboration with the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig.
Video-Excerpt: D-Es-C-H 2022, 4K video, color, sound, 2:30 Min.
The video D-Es-C-H is inspired by the musical protest of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich against repression under Joseph Stalin. As a performative four-note piece, D-Es-C-H brings this protest into the present, where the practices of the Russian regime echo those of the past.
Performed by a string quartet, four musicians play a recurring musical motif drawn from Shostakovich’s compositions. The musical theme—and the title of the video piece—consists of the composer’s initials, which he used as a personal cipher throughout his works to symbolically reference himself. These coded sounds of resistance allow Shostakovich to navigate between adaptation and protest, as well as between utopia and catastrophe in his music.
In contrast to classical performance practice, the musicians move through a stairwell, developing the sound sequence performatively within the space through continuous repetition.
CREDITS
Concept: Katharina Bayer
1st
Violin: Sona Arzumanyan
2nd Violin: Nathalie Schmalhofer
Viola: Paula Mengel
Cello: Felicia Hamza
Camera: Jyrgen Ueberschär, Katharina Bayer
Editing: Katharina Bayer, Jyrgen Ueberschär
Sound: Toni Schlesinger
Technical Support: Carsten Möller
Artistic Mentoring: Clemens von Wedemeyer, Mareike Bernien