press release

Nicholas Bussmann____Amelica

Two videos block the way into the lobby. They show a conductor training a colleague: embodied gestures of action and spectatorship and their mutual transmission from one person to another (Video No. 2, 2007).
The entrance to the exhibition has been diverted and leads in two different directions now – one to a playground with sandboxes, props and the blinding instruction to build a world and its anagrammatic variations (Wandering Dunes, 2018), the other to an abandoned dance hall in which the “best house riffs for piano” pervade the misty air like ghosts (Amelica, 2018). In the video entitled Etüde in bürgerlichen Gefühlen (2009), Nicholas Bussmann works his way through moods, through tuning and through modulations of his own voice (Stimmung, Stimmen, Stimme).
A Wikipedia entry about dialects is read by a computer-generated voice for blind people in a YouTube clip. The spoken words are automatically transcribed for the deaf in turn. We see a filmed documentation of that process (A language is a dialect with an army, 2017). An automated piano plays revolution songs – without hands or voices. The lyrics shine bright on karaoke LEDs (Revolution Songs in an AI Environment, 2017).

What kind of autonomy is generated by repeatedly repeating a repetition, by adapting adaptations? What effective energy is released by the interplay and collision of incongruous systems, formations and subjects? What happens in the attempt to imbue algorithms with rhythm? What is the form of a system of coordinates that has no origin?
Nicholas Bussmann plays with the Here and Now. Every moment is permeated by antecedent figures. Inevitably, the joyful question arises of whether it is possible to shape and form these figurations in the present.
In Nicholas Bussmann’s first solo exhibition we encounter mimetic adoptions in music, installations, videos and sandbox games. Clearly marked territories’ frames of reference are infringed upon. Reconfiguration, swan song and party accord in an improvised alliance.

Curated by Nina Tabassomi

WANDERING DUNES is an installation and sandbox game created especially for the exhibition among other works. On the opening weekend, WANDERING DUNES will be activated by 14 game masters and musicians:

WANDERING DUNES
Sat, June 30, 6pm through 8.30pm
Sun, July 1, 3pm through 6pm
Sandbox game with Nicholas Bussmann, Philippe Cerf, Lucile Desamory, Yusuf Ergün, Michael Guggenheim, Margareth Kammerer, Rudi Katholnig, Rico Lee, Laura Mello, Eduard Mont de Palol, Konstantin Schimanowski, Simone Schönett, Aaron Snyder and Helga Utz

I LIKE MARINA ABRAMOVIC AND MARINA ABRAMOVIC LIKES ME (Nicholas Bussmann) + KAPITAL BAND 1 (Nicholas Bussmann & Martin Brandlmayr)
Thur, September 13, 7pm
Performance and concert