Stimmen
Traces and Séances
3 Nov 2026, 6 pm
With Andy Ammer, Ujesh Buchele, Andrei Cucu, Duo driftmachine (Andreas Gerth, Florian Zimmer), Friedrich Dieckmann, Sean Douglas, Kerstin Hensel, Ulrich Peltzer, Kathrin Röggla, Steffi Weismann, JD Zazie
- Locations:
Hanseatenweg, Studio Lobby ,Hanseatenweg, Clubroom - Limited wheelchair access
- Date:
3 Nov 2026 - Time:
6 pm - Price:EUR 15 (Reduced: EUR 9)
- Languages: German
- Save appointment
The voice is an expression of life: it tells us about the body and state of mind, and carries personal and historical traces. It can deceive, imitate or fall silent. It rises up, makes itself heard and becomes an expression of individuality and resistance.
But what happens when voices outlast time and their owners have long since fallen silent? When they return from archives, are reassembled, or, as artificial voices, challenge our conception of what it means to be human? This evening is dedicated to the voice as a literary expression, an acoustic phenomenon and a vessel of memory.
The programme opens with a vocal performance: writer Kerstin Hensel teams up with Ujesh Buchele and Sean Douglas to create a playful, satirical prologue.
During the subsequent tour of three venues, the voice is experienced in ever-changing ways: as spoken language, as a historical recording, as sound, and as a physical and mechanical presence. In the “Séance Méchanique”, Andrei Cucu, Steffi Weismann and JD Zazie jointly conjure up voices from the past. Turntables, mechanical amplification and whispering funnels open up a space where the boundary between analogue and digital, between presence and absence, becomes blurred.
Following this, historical audio recordings enter into a dialogue with the present: Friedrich Dieckmann speaks about Ernst Bloch. Ulrich Peltzer reflects on the voices of Gottfried Benn and Johannes Becher. Kathrin Röggla brings the literary voices of Silvia Bovenschen, Heiner Müller, Ilse Aichinger and Friederike Mayröcker into new contexts and explores how literature resonates across eras, bodies and linguistic spaces.
The evening concludes with Andy Ammer and the duo driftmachine presenting a live audio-performative interpretation: recordings of a reading by Heiner Müller on Edgar Allan Poe are sampled, rhythmised and musically re-composed. In the process, the voice breaks free from its original context and takes on a new sonic character. Moving between literature, the archive and experimental sound, the evening unfolds as an exploration of the vitality of voices, and of what remains audible when people have fallen silent.