Kakania

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The Artists & their Subjects

Joshua Alexander on Paul Wittgenstein
"Paul Wittgenstein was a concert pianist who had his right arm amputated during the First World War - after the war he continued to perform with just his left hand. This video work will attempt to explore the idea of drawing experience from an area of absence – I will use the setting of Ortigia, Sicily, where I currently live, and a soundtrack of a recording of Paul Wittgenstein playing Bach/Brahms - Chaconne for the left hand, a piece he adapted." 

Martin Bakero on Arnold Schoenberg

Emily Berry on Sigmund Freud
"For my commission on Freud I will be making poems collaged from material found in his personal writings (such as his love letters to his wife before they married), as well as drawing on my own interest in psychoanalysis. The aim is to create poems that talk like Freud, even if what they are saying is not quite what the ‘great man’ intended."

Caroline Bergvall on Gustav Klimt

Stephen Emmerson on Rainer Maria Rilke

"Rilke was one of the first poets I read that stopped me dead in my tracks, that left me with my mouth open inhaling the dark ghost of universal emptiness. His lyric is astonishing. There is a quality to his post war work, especially The Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies, that seemed to reach into my conciousness and unfold it, laying it bare in front of me. I think of it as an existential terror, which Rilke must have experienced, that is carried in the startling images and music of his poetry. I have often thought about translating Rilke, but didn't think that producing a text would be enough. I wanted to do something that could change the audiences perception of poetry, and also examine the biological effects of the word." 

Colin Herd on Oskar Kokoschka
"So many of Kokoschka's letters start with something along the lines of, "why are you cross with me and won't reply?" or "if you saw me on horseback, you might not be so cross with me", and finish, "tempestuously hugging you,"; "tenderly, mindful of your strictures," or, "do you still love me? Write and tell me so at great length." By which I mean his writing style is needy, expressive, passionate and slightly nuts. I can’t resist it whatsoever, rolling over and taking whatever pellets he wants to choke me down on without the merest hint of worry or concern..."

Sharon Gal on Anton Weber
"My commission for Kakania relates to songs composed by Anton Webern, and in particular, song cycle, “Fünf Lieder” Op. 3, which was significant in the development of Webern’s early atonal style. My own composition, developed from manipulations and layering of short segments of vocal recordings, fractured phrases and isolated sections of vocal expressions, which where expanded and brought together, emerging as a rich and orchestral sounding tapestry of haunted memories of bygone days."

Jeff Hilson on Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tom Jenks on Otto Gross
"My work on Otto Gross focuses on his image as, in the words of Gottfried Heuer, “the devil under the couch”: anarchist, provocateur and violator of morals. My poetry sequence explores the gulf between the libertarian principles of Gross and the circumscribed purview of contemporary society. In particular, I am interested in how the more extreme theories of Gross might relate to a lifestyle that is very different to that of Gross himself." 

Maja Jantar on Lou Andreas-Salome
"der mensch als weib - creation - the being now - fully - folding in onto oneself - narcissus reflecting in it’s own image - finding peace there - meaning - mending division - pure - cruel - not thinking in dialectics - unity / act of trance - act of love - act of now"

David Kelly on Egon Schiele

Diane Silverthorne & Ariadne Radi Cor on Alma Mahler & her circle
from Diane: "The vibrant voice of the young Alma speaks through her diaries with humour, passion and a knowing innocence. Our joint project traces and reinvigorates the spirit of place and time through her enthusiasms and precocious intellect." from Ariadne: "The idea is to scribe what Diane Silverthorne is reading, in order to make Alma Mahler’s diary come to life on stage." 

Dylan Nyoukis on Raoul Hausmann
"Much of what Hausmann spurted out touches upon my own work many many years down the line, the sound poetry, the montage/collage, cut-ups and performance. I always wonder what magic he might have conjured up if such a thing as a portable tape machine had existed in 1918, when his sound poetry juices were raging fierce. For my short piece on the 25th (entitled "Wreck The Hausmann Juice") I will use collage, cut-up, voice, performance and tape to tip my antlers to the past and still ripe force."

Damir Sodan on Gustav Mahler

Marcus Slease on Max Kurzweil

Esther Strauss on Anna Freud

George Szirtes on Arthur Schnitzler

Joerg Zemmler on Karl Kraus

& for the Anthology

Michael Zand on Hugo von Hofmannstah - Jaime Robles on Ludwig Boltzmann - Alison Gibb on Bruno Walter
Pascal O'Loughlin on Wilhelm Reich - Vicky Sparrow on Margarethe Wittgenstein - Kim Campanello on Alban Berg
Jack little on Peter Altenber - Eley Williams on Broncia Koller-Pinel - Andy Jackson on Oscar Strau
JT Welsch on Hermann Broc - Fabian Peake on Franz Werfel - Aki Schilz on Hermann Bahr
Fabian Faltin on Otto Wagne - Iain Morrison on Alexander von Zemlinsk - Clare Saponia on Julius Wagner-Jauregg
Rhys Trimble on Felix Salten - Robert Maclean on Max Reinhardt - Ryan Van Winkle on Ernst Weiss
Andrew Spragg on Koloman Moser - Peter Jaeger on Theodor Herz