ACCENTISMS

PROGRAM
IN THE CONTEXT OF ACCENTISMS

January 26/27
Film Screening, Symposium & Record Release

In the symposium, the various forms of ACCENTISMS formulated by the participating artists in the exhibition are confronted with discussions by other experts who are all researching and working in Innsbruck.
How, when and for what purpose are accents placed in the foreground of alpine yodeling? What kind of energy can the iteration and modification of accents generate in painting and sculpture? How and why are local variations collected and preserved in the Tiroler Dialektarchiv, and how do participating individuals perceive their own dialects? With what shifts of accent are researchers in the field of postmigratory studies at the University of Innsbruck working on redirecting current debates?
In the framework of the symposium, the vinyl record of Natascha Sadr Haghighian’s and Nicholas Bussmann’s project Singing Yesterday’s News Again will be released. What roles do song and the proliferation of accents play in the process of disseminating and assimilating knowledge? In what debates do media activists engage within this context?
Will the processes of self-reflection in the various fields of study relating to accents permeate and contaminate each other?

The symposium is opening with the screening of A Magical Substance Flows Into Me, a film by Jumana Manna, that brings the exhibition ACCENTISMS into the LEOKINO. The artist follows the footsteps of the Jewish-German ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann (1892-1939) and the concept of his radio program “Oriental Music,” which was aired by the Palestine Broadcasting Service in the 1930s. Eighty years later, Manna meets in the film with members of the communities with whom Lachmann had recorded for his program in the effort to establish an archive of vernacular musical traditions in Jerusalem. Manna visits musicians – Kurdish, Moroccan and Yemenite Jews, Samaritans, members of the rural and urban Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians – and listens to Lachmann’s recordings with them. The resulting discussions and the singers’ and instrumentalists’ performances reveal the complexity of interwoven accents that defy Lachmann’s categorizations.

Inaugural event: FILM SCREENING
Fri, January 26, 6.30 pm, Leokino

Jumana Manna: A Magical Substance Flows Into Me
(Palestine/D/GB 2015, 68 min., with English subtitles)

Introduction: Nina Tabassomi
In collaboration with the Leokino. Tickets available directly at the cinema

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SYMPOSIUM ACCENTISMS
Sat, January 27, 10.30 am – 5 pm, TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol

10.30 – 11.45 am
Introduction (Nina Tabassomi, Director TAXISPALAIS)
Postmigrantische Akzente (Prof. Dr. Erol Yıldız, Postmigratory Studies, University of Innsbruck)

12.00 – 12.45 pm
Record Release: Nicholas Bussmann & Natascha Sadr Haghighian Singing Yesterday‘s News Again
Communitymedien und Nachrichten (Markus Schennach, CEO Radio Freirad / President Association of Free Radios Austria)
Wie mia d'Gosch gwochse isch – Mimetischer Vortrag (Nicholas Bussmann, Artist ACCENTISMS)

1.45 – 3.15 pm
Tirolerisch wie? Tirolerisch was? Einblicke in die Beschäftigung mit dem Dialekt aus wissenschaftlicher und laienlinguistischer Sicht (Dr. Yvonne Kathrein, Director Tiroler Dialektarchiv, German Studies Department, University of Innsbruck)
Untitled. Über Wiederholung und Akzentverschiebung als künstlerische Verfahren (Ute Müller, Artist ACCENTISMS)

3.30 – 5 pm
Jodeldridü oder jololoidü – Die Geschichte des Jodelns: ein multikulturelles Konstrukt für patriotische Ideologien instrumentalisiert (Prof. Dr. Raymond Ammann, Musicology Department, University of Innsbruck / Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Music)
Panel discussion with Prof. Dr. Raymond Ammann, Dr. Yvonne Kathrein, Annja Krautgasser, Ute Müller, Markus Schennach, Nina Tabassomi and Prof. Dr. Erol Yıldız

The symposium will be held in German. Free of charge, no registration required

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EXHIBITION ACCENTISMS
30.09.2017 - 28.01.2018

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Nicholas Bussmann & Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Edith Dekyndt, Annja Krautgasser, Ali Meer Azimi, Ute Müller, Ulrich Nausner, Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere and Natascha Sadr Haghighian

The Latin word accentus is derived from adcantus, meaning “what is added to the song” – a poetic supplement to syllables, words and sentences in order to emphasize them. We also speak of accent when these sound shapes, the intonation patterns and rhythms from a previously learned language are integrated into a newly learned one and imbue it with a distinctive tonal coloration. Accents are events. They are articulated and registered simultaneously, spoken and heard at once. Individual idiosyncrasies of speech are equally process-based. They change as we follow the personal maps of our lives, and are affected by the different places in which we live and the different people with whom we speak. Thus by virtue of their complexity, individual accents always clash with simplistic concepts of identity. Yet in everyday life, speech idiosyncrasies are often equated automatically with one’s place of birth and class background, and are therefore subject to judgments and discrimination. In contrast, art insists that “what is added to the song” – coloration, shadings and tonalities – be experienced as an engine of beauty and complexity.

Curated by Nina Tabassomi