Distanz (1991)

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A piece for the project "Artsat" - a live-performance between Graz, the MIR space station, the first Austrian cosmonaut and an artist, Richard Kriesche
Released on CD "Artsat - Richard Kriesche", ORF
 
"Kriesche, the artist, transmits the image of his hand into space where an Austrian astronaut can filter it from the data-background, the data static, only with the aid of certain instruments. At a certain point, for a few minutes only, the space capsule was positioned precisely above Graz, in a way that the data transmitted by the astronaut could be filtered from the data static in Graz. The live data triggered the waltz 'On the Blue Danube', a keyboard and a welding robot. Simultaneously, the filtered out data of the astronaut's message were recorded and passed on to 10 composers who created small compositions from the data." Heidi Grundmann


"The cosmonaut's message from outer space alienates the blue danube waltz, on earth and vice versa. The message from outer space becomes a live conductor, as it were, of the blue danube waltz. The alienated blue danube waltz is then used as a control signal for a mute piano which is played by the imaginary hand of the cosmonaut. The cosmonaut stretches out his hand to us as he flies by overhead..." Richard Kriesche


"DISTANZ - ein aspekt der erinnerung" is dedicated to Max Brand, an Austrian composer, whose piece "The Astronauts" is an electronic epic on John Glenn's first orbital flight in 1962.


Sound and data material of the first Austrian cosmonaut, merged with quotations of sound material of an Austrian composer describing the first surrounding of the earth by an American astronaut tell a little Austrian story about outer space.