abschminken

the short rest of a long ending

abschminken (engl.: to remove make-up) is a play-in-between a public and private space: While the music is performed on stage the video shows a scene in the wardrobe behind the stage. We don’t know anything about the time relationship between both spaces, we even can’t define the relationship between the virtual and the real performers.

The camera acts as a mirror for the virtual singer. He’s removing his make-up – removing his stage-role, another identity, another body and perhaps he’s removing more than that.

The music appears as a sound mirror, changing between an artificial mannerism and instrumented emotional eruptions. The music forms itself and acts inside the challenge between countenance and the loss of control. A complaining Bach and souvenirs of arias appear as reminiscences of a vanished nature, music as a vanished character, as a costume that has to be changed and asks its owner for a new definition.