Michaela Schwentner aka. Jade is a conceptual media artist mainly working with film, video and sound. She is the director of Mosz Records. Her work has an experimental approach – she tries to find new ways of storytelling and of the reception of sound (by visualising it). Under the moniker Jade she has been working on audio-visual performances both solo and with musicians/sound artists like Peter Rehberg and Electric Indigo. The idea of her most recent essayistic film works was to elaborate philosophical aspects within a cinematographic context. Her films include reenactments, performative interventions in public space, performances for stage settings. The act of staging – be it a video piece, a performance or an action or intervention in public space – she explores intensely with an essayist approach, mostly combined or put together in the context of moving images. She reflects philosophic phenomena in society and transforms them into new pieces with high poetic potential. She extracts those reflections from their original context and turns them into staged or restaged pieces (a play or a film) – images, ideas, and phrases are performed as if they were figures.
Facts
1: Reality is a special case of the possibility (thus, I agree with Alexand er Kluge)
2: Awaken!
3: Slaughterdijk!
Questions
What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Music, films, other artists‘ works, environmental sounds and noises.
How and when did you get into making music?
It must have been round 1990. But it took another 5-6 years before I really got into experimenting and creating my own sounds.
What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
There are so many fav albums!!! so it’s really hard to limit it down to just 5 … but I’ll try – these are the albums which I’ve been
listening to most, I guess:
low – david bowie
cabaret voltaire – the living legends
closer – joy division
taking tiger mountain – brian eno
l’oeil écoute – bernard parmegiani
What do you associate with Berlin?
Cool city. Lots of friends moved there a couple of years ago.
What’s your favourite place in your town?
The vineyards on the hills of the wienerwald (surroundings of vienna, kahlenberg), the oil harbour (‚ölhafen‘).
If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Invent it. Make films and photographs.
What was the last record you bought?
Bernard Heidsieck – 50/70
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Bernard Parmegiani
What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
As performer the live set at la Rochelle film festival 2009 with Peter Rehberg; as spectator the experience of pan sonic’s experimental series called ‚rude mechanic‘ at beaconsfield gallery in London, 1996.
How important is technology to your creative process?
The use of it in general is important – to experiment with different technologies, software, instruments, combinations. But there’s no specific technology that is more important than another one.
Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career?
I have a brother and a sister, both younger than me. They are neither proud nor jealous of me. It’s just that they don’t really understand what I’m doing or why I’m doing it. It doesn’t fit their understand ing and design of living.
Our Favourites:
Des souvenirs vagues
vimeo.com/108811013
Swinging
vimeo.com/108130457
Transistor
vimeo.com/108130456
Links: mosz.org | jade-enterprises.at
