Die Verwechslung der Freiheit

Based on a text passage from the book Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, aspects of the behavior of moths are examined: Lured into human territories by artificial light, they become increasingly disoriented and exhaust themselves trying to regain orientation. They fall into rigor mortis and remain in a resting position, while dying slowly in this „petrified“ state. I traced the narrative of the straying and freezing butterfly. From the resulting material around the mythical meanings of moths and butterflies, transformations and metamorphoses as well as fossilization processes and petrification an experimental audio piece reflects on the political and cultural implications of the image of the disoriented moth.

The audioplay had its official premiere 2022 as part of the Sound Art Program of Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Script & direction: Katharina Zimmerhackl, voices: Lena Dorn, Barbara Fressner, Jörg Vogel, music & sound: Andreas Kurz, violin: Doretta Balkizas, polyphonic arrangements: Julia Pellegrini, vocals: Julia Pellegrini, Friederike Merz, mixing of the Arrangements: Thomas Mark, recorded at Laboratorium Leipzig. With text fragments by Theodor W. Adorno & Max Horkheimer, Roland Barthes, Roger Caillois, Friedrich Eggers, Sigmund Freud, Manfred Koch, Ovid, Sylvia Plath, Friedrich Schnack, W.G. Sebald und Christa Wolf.

Experimental Audioplay, 37:06 Min.| 2021 | Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (KdFS)