Abstract
Gustav Mahler’s centenary (2010– 11) took place in the age of digital media, whose technological possibilities afforded strikingly diverse opportunities to mark the occasion. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, for example, held a Mahler remix competition based on stems of their recording of the First Symphony, the philosophical and aesthetic implications of which I have discussed elsewhere.1 But also in 2011 the Österreichischer Rundfunk at the RadioKulturhaus in Vienna, together with departure, the creative agency of Vienna, held the intermedially themed “lied lab 2011: gustav mahler festival” [sic], a “creative laboratory uniting top- level performances of Lieder and the art of visualization.”2 It comprised digitally created, moving- image visualisations or interpretations of Mahler’s Frühe Lieder (1880– 87), Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1883– 85), Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1887– 1901), Kindertotenlieder (1901– 04), Rückertlieder (1901– 02), and Das Lied von der Erde (1908– 09), produced by a range of experimental visual artists including Luma. Launisch, annablume, Victoria Coeln, LIA, LWZ, and Valence. It also included a seventy- minute, real- time collaborative audiovisual remix of Mahler’s music by sound artist Fennesz and video artist Lillevan. In the same year, Danish composer Henrik Marstal worked with VJ Dark Matters and the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra to produce a live, multimedia, sample- based performance entitled “Ambient Mahler Remixes”. Interestingly, prior to the centenary years there had already been a small burgeoning tradition of Mahler- based digital experimental visualisation, starting with Slovenian video artist Božidar Svetek’s “Interakt Studio” (1996– 2004), and the work of Austrian visual artist Johannes Deutsch with the “Ars Electronica Futurelab” (2005– 06).3 The fact that not all of the attempts to create visualisations of Mahler’s music, or to use and adapt his music to such ends, came about as a result of the anniversary years 2010– 11, therefore perhaps indicates a wider and deeper perception of the potential creative rewards attached to “remediating” his music.