Today we meet Judith Mann, a musician who worked on the section 12 of the river Lech, which corresponds to the Forggensee, the largest reservoir on the river.
When we did our research before our trip along the river we read about some controversies on tourism and noise around the lake. We got there in the lowest season and found a calm, almost eerie atmosphere which Judith brilliantly interpreted.
We reached out to her asking about her work, keep scrolling to read the answers.
Hello Judith, can you tell us something about yourself?
I am a musician working with her voice, instruments, field recordings, sound processing.
My project is called Mhon, which was once described as Songs in experiment and silence, I think that fits.
I do not like to talk about myself and prefer my music to speak for itself, so if you want to listen :
What did you like about this project that drawn you to it?
In my work with field recordings I like to explore the relationship between the human being and time and space - in this case the relationship between humans and nature. Also the approach to divide the Lech into segments and having different artist working on a piece and then creating a whole is exciting, that is why I wanted to be part of this project. I am very curious to hear how it will all sound together.
Do you want to talk about the process you followed in creating your composition?
After listening to “my” sound , I looked at everything and read everything, then I listened again after a longer break to see, how it connects.
But now my first impulse was to change or add nothing- just let the sound be- like it is..... It took a while until i though:
Ok Lech- I “visit” you and bring some silent sounds - sounds that will develop while listening - like the sounds that might show up in your head, when you are in nature.
So I layered spoken word, singing of different melodies that did not necessary fit, a bit piano and let it meet the Lech- but so, so silent that you can hardly hear it- is there something ? or not? Did i hear something else? what was that? I did not change the recording of the Lech, it is exactly like it was recorded. I just shortened it a bit, because I wanted this piece to be an instant, a blink of an eye.
Flow is a project by Martina Cecchetto, curated by Riccardo Fumagalli, with the scientific contribution of Florian Betz.
In collaboration with Cities & Memory, University of Padua (Italy), University of Würzburg (Germany).
