Anton Kaun | Carl F. Oesterhelt - Strunz! Enterprises

Stimme und vor sich hin spielenden Maschinen beharrend, legten wir
uns fest, keine weiteren Eingriffe in die Aufnahme zu machen. Keine
nachträglichen Effekte, kein Verschieben der Spuren. Wir machten einen
Endmix, das war’s.
(Ted Gaier)
What does auto-destructive art mean today and how might it sound on a
CD? We soon found out that a lot of what Metzger formulated in the 60s
to draw a line of demarcation to the bourgeois notion of art has already
crept subconsciously into our common practice as musicians or political
activists. Destruction, self-destruction, or even the idea of creating art
without the authentic artist subject and leaving the job up to chance and
machines are a logical part of how people like us see ourselves, people
who have been concerned for between 15 and 30 years with a wide
range of underground music of whatever kind.
But other than with a metal sculpture, for example, with a digital recording
it’s not particularly appealing to consider the decay of the material, in
this case data or the data medium, as part of the track. Furthermore the
dominant notion of art today is so repressively tolerant or limpid that it is
no longer possible to create an anti-state by hacking its symbols to
pieces. An illustration of this in Metzger’s specific case is the fact that an
insurance company foundation has done an admirable job in preserving
his work.