(C)ovid’s Metamorphoses

With a wide range of work by sound artists and musicians, writers, filmmakers, photographers, and visual artists, @ovid’s Metamorphoses uses the COVID-19 pandemic and its far-reaching consequences as an instrument for change, artistic and otherwise. A play on experiment across various fields of artistic practice, all featured work revolves around ideas of transmission and inspiration, conjuring up a massive body of vital and daring artistic expressions unashamedly avant-garde.

@ovid’s Metamorphoses is a project initiated by Bernd Herzogenrath, professor of American literature and culture at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main and sound artist Lasse-Marc Riek. It features contributions from artists from the worlds of film, sound art and music, writing, visual art, and photography, intent on upsetting the idea behind Ovid’s Metamorphoses, metamorphosis and progress through violence, and defining the COVID-19 epidemic as a possible counterbalancing act to the myths underlying Western culture. Throughout all the work presented here runs the idea of playfulness as a fundamental artistic act. Infection and transmission allow for an artistic practice that leaves behind the myths that have defined Western culture for centuries.

@ovid’s Metamorphoses features an incredible amount of sound pieces, films, texts, photographs, drawings, comics, and paintings produced by a host of artists working in the vanguard of their respective fields. An intertextual play on beauty and meaning makes for art pieces that often get lost in transmission and dwell on an existence beyond the common definitions both aesthetic and moral that run through our culture. All participating artists have exchanged ideas and pieces, fading out myths by way of the game of The Broken Telephone. Through the interplay of infection and information, information chains and sources of infection, new meanings spread, in spaces defined and determined by all artists.

SOUND

Maja S K Ratkje (NO), bergsonist (MA/US), Suk-Jun Kim (KR/UK), Michael Gordon (US),  Bill B. Wintermute (DE), Raphael Kariuki (KE), Jacob Cooper (US), Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir (IS), Opubo Braide (ZA), Lee Scratch Perry (JM/CH), Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) (CA), Obsolete Capitalism (IT), Tomas Saraceno (AR), Shira Legmann (IL), Reinhold Friedl (Zeitkratzer) (DE) , Dalibor Kocian (SK), Lucrecia Dalt (CO), Marc Richter (DE), Gareth Davis (UK/NL), Lawrence English (AU), Lane Shi Otayonii (CN), Ensemble Klang (NL), Jelena Glazova (LV), Steven R. Smith (US), James Yorkston (SCO), Jonas Noack (DE), Rehab Hazgui (TN), Laima Jansone (LT), Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) (UK), Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) (KE/DE) , Thomas Köner (DE/HR), Anthony Joseph (TT/UK), David Rothenberg (US), Francisco López (ES), Lasse-Marc Riek (DE), Frauke Berg (DE), Geraldine Vanspauwen (BE), Thelmo Cristovam (BR), João Castro Pinto (PT), Pablo Sanz (ES), DinahBird (FR), Stefan Militzer (DE), Janko Hanushevsky (AT/DE), Sally Ann McIntyre (AUS/NZ), Achim Zepezauer (DE), Julia Mihaly (DE), Roland Etzin (DE), Charlotte Höchsmann (DE), Constantin Gröhn (DE), Goh Lee Gwang (MY), Siri Austeen (NO), Johannes Krause (DE), Matthias Engelke (DE), Angélica Castelló (MX/AT), Sergio Armaroli (IT), Eva Pöpplein (DE), Nicola Di Croce (IT).

TEXT

Christoph Collenberg (DE), Christine Wunnicke (DE), Anna Tsing-Lowenhaupt (US), Allen C. Shelton (US), Stefano Oliva (IT) , Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (DE), Ally Bisshop (AUS/DE), Jane Bennett (US), Bernd Herzogenrath (DE), Sheree Renée Thomas (US), Rosi Braidotti (NL), Michael Marder (UK), Andreas Stroehl (DE), Tom McCarthy (UK/DE), Reinaldo Laddaga (AR), Hanjo Berressem (DE), Eugenie Brinkema (US), Christina Kubisch (DE) , David Vélez (CL/UK), Lin Chi Wei (TW), Jörg Piringer (AT), Gustavo Valdivia (PE), Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (IN), Angus Carlyle (UK), Cathy Lane (UK), Eva Weingärtner (DE), Viv Corringham (AU), Annea Lockwood (US/NZ), Tobias Schmitt (DE), Christopher DeLaurenti (US), Brandon Labelle (US/DE), Sarah Kazmi (PK/NO).

IMAGE

Zuzana Lazarova (CZ), Marketa Kinterova (CZ), Eva Jeske (DE), Graeme Gilloch/Michael Hall (UK), Michal Macku (CZ), Stefan Fricke (DE), Michael Wesely (DE), Suraya Md Nasir (MY), Verena Freyschmidt (DE), Jaanika Peerna (US), Nicholas Jones (UK/NO), Caroline Streck (DE), Wieland Krause (DE), Alexandra Deutsch (DE), Arash Akbari (IR), Maria Wang Kvalheim (NO), Jaime Jiron (ES).

FILM

Bill Morrison (US), Sebastian Wiedemann (CO), Péter Lichter (HU), Hedvika Hlavackova (CZ), Austine Lordlaz (NG), Ali Beidoun (Fotonik Noise) (LB), Karel Doing (UK), Kaveh Nabatian (Bell Orchestre) (CA), Vincent Moon (FR), Dodda Maggý (IS), Ayman Nahle (LB), Eisuke Yanagisawa (JP), Margrethe Iren Pettersen (NO), Philipp Bückle (DE), Ville Tanttu (FI), Ana Maria Micu (RO), Xu Xin (CN), Manfred Waffender (DE), Elly Stormer Vadseth (NO), Claus Stoermer (DE), Darius Ciuta (LT), Ali Beidoun (IT).

Idea Bernd Herzogenrath
Curated by Bernd Herzogenrath & Lasse-Marc Riek
Design by Vildana Memic
Audio Mastering by Lorenz Lindner