Inside the Labyrinth
Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project is an intellectual monster and a philosophical labyrinth. Yet many parts of this text, which remained unfinished and only in fragments, have a lyrical and sensual quality. They mirror a lucid way of thinking that takes the old Parisian arcades as a metaphor for a society in essential flux.
Sound collages, videos and live sung texts adopt ideas from Benjamin’s Arcades Project, but also graft the concept of the arcade as an index of a society focused on consumption onto our present time. The principles of montage used here are inspired by Benjamin’s own method: “Method of this project: literary montage. I needn’t say anything. Merely show. I shall purloin no valuables, appropriate no ingenious formulations. But the rags, the refuse—these I will not inventory but allow, in the only way possible, to come into their own: by making use of them.”
Execution: Kunsthalle Wien
Concept and implementation: Erik Leidal (vocals), Markus Oberndorfer and Jean Philipp Oliver Viol
Visuals: Stefano D’alessio and Martina Menegon
Tuesday, 10. / 17. / 24. September 2013
7 and 8 pm
Starting point: Im Klosterhof, Museumsquartier
Duration: 120 minutes