Melanie Manchot

the multimedia artist Melanie Manchot has created an audiovisual experience in her 21-meter-long installation Alpine Diskomiks that pushes the limits of our perception to extremes. Manchot has lined up here 50 turntables that are set spinning one after the other. At first, a record with an atmospheric mix of electronic sounds and drums is played. It forms the baseline and, with its running time of 19 minutes, defines both the beginning and end of the sound installation. Bit by bit, the other turntables join in, their music superimposed on the tracks already playing. The genres range from classical music by Franz Schubert to 70s pop and rock, from experimental electro sounds and folk music to death metal. What these vinyl records all have in common is the mountain motifs that adorn their covers, revealing the source of inspiration for the diverse musicians. The successive overlapping of the varied music makes focusing and orientation increasingly difficult. The audio work culminates in a deafening cacophony, an intense and overwhelming soundscape that has the effect of melding the individual pieces of music together and literally making the listener dizzy. Manchot’s work turns the commonplace motif of the idyllic, romantic mountain landscape on its head, shifting the focus to the tremendous natural forces that have shaped these formations over millions of years. Having reached the acoustic peak, the individual sound tracks gradually subside again and only the original music is heard; our sense of orientation gradually returns and we feel that we are back on solid ground. Acoustically evoked in this fashion, the mountain motif finds a harmonic visual counterpoint in the frieze of record covers on the walls above the turntables. Offset along the horizon line, the 50 covers form a long and colorful mountain range, beginning with the titular Alpine Diskomiks.

50 Vinyl Disc, each with Montain-Cover
50 customised record players, synchronized, Cabel
Wall chart with graphic of starting and ending time of each record

Video documentation Alpine Diskomiks
Video of Alpine Diskomiks in the group exhibition Borderlines of Space, Galerie m