Anton Bruckner as you have probably never experienced him before: In the deep space of the Ars Electronica Center (AEC) in Linz, visitors can virtually immerse themselves in the heart of a symphony by the Ansfelden master from Wednesday, January 31st. It works like this: At the beginning, visitors hear and see a recording of the powerful Scherzo from the 9th Symphony with the Linz Bruckner Orchestra under chief conductor Markus Poschner using 3D glasses. Then they have the opportunity to intervene themselves. Individual groups of instruments, such as violins or double basses, are depicted on the floor. The more visitors stand on one of these points, the louder this group can be heard. “In this way, the interaction of the individual voices can be experienced much more intensively than would be possible in a concert,” says Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of the AEC. The info guide can also select individual groups. For example, the oboe can be heard playing a single note for more than a minute.
A team led by Stocker, the AEC-Futurelab, and Norbert Trawöger, artistic director of the Bruckner Orchestra and head of the Bruckner Year, worked on the “Playing Anton” project for a year. The implementation took half a year. Not only did the Bruckner Orchestra as a whole have to be recorded in image and sound with the Scherzo of the 9th, but also the 14 instrument groups individually. Then came the technical implementation for deep space, where laser trackers determine where and how many people are in order to then align the acoustic and visual 3D recordings. “You learn how an orchestra and a symphony work,” says Trawöger. After the opening on Wednesday, “Playing Anton” can be experienced every day at 4:30 p.m., at least until the end of the year. The city, the AEC and the state of Upper Austria invested a total of 320,000 euros in this. The occasion is the Anton Bruckner Year on the composer’s 200th birthday on September 4, 2024, which the state of Upper Austria is celebrating with a “Culture Expo”.
Bild: Martin Hieslmair/Ars Electronica
At the same time, the show “Being Anton” will open at the AEC on Wednesday. The show, curated by Gerfried Stocker with the help of Norbert Trawöger, deals with the time in which Anton Bruckner lived. “We always believe that today one technical revolution follows another,” says Stocker. “But things were no different during Anton Bruckner’s lifetime.” During his lifetime, the triumph of the railway and electricity, telephones, photography, film and the first cars were developed. The Eiffel Tower was built in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the State Opera, the Music Society and the Parliament were built in Vienna. According to Wikipedia, while Anton Bruckner was alive, there were 92 wars and 250 major battles worldwide. Visitors walk through the exhibition with headphones, which automatically provide them with appropriate texts and music depending on their location. In a separate room, Bruckner’s works are mixed with sounds from the time, such as church bells and horse hooves.
At the presentation on Tuesday, State Governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP) was sure that the two formats would attract many visitors: “Art means the motivation to dare to do something new.” The exhibition makes Bruckner’s time and its upheavals come alive, said Linz Mayor Klaus Luger. All information regarding both projects can be found at aec.at
Author
Herbert Schorn
Editor culture and life
Herbert Schorn
