Florian Hecker: A Script for Machine Synthesis

The Stedelijk Museum and Sonic Acts are proud to present the multi-sensory performance A Script for Machine Synthesis, by German artist Florian Hecker.

Florian Hecker’s performance A Script for Machine Synthesis is a sound piece, an experimental drama, and a model of abstraction that recalls Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty as much as Beckett’s minimalist narratives and neo-imagist poetry. It is the climactic third chapter in the trilogy of text-sound pieces that Hecker created with the writer-philosopher Reza Negarestani (after Chimerization, dOCUMENTA13 and Hinge, Lumiar Cité, Lisbon; both 2012), who is also speaking during the opening of the Sonic Acts Festival 2015 at the Stedelijk. The suggestive encounter with a pink ice cube is a conceptual point of departure for a scene in which linguistic chimeras of descriptions of smell and sound are materialized through synthetic trophies, auditory objects, and theatrical props.

Devoid of human actors, A Script for Machine Synthesis is an experiment in putting synthetic emptiness back into synthetic thought, featuring the voice of Charlotte Rampling; a perfume created by Frédéric Malle - Editions de Parfums and Carlos Benaïm; IFF, a synthetic voice designed by Rob Clark and the Centre for Speech Research Technology, University of Edinburgh; a CAL 64 Column Array Loudspeaker System by Meyer Sound; and a synthetic paper booklet designed by NORM, Zurich.

This performance is part of the Sonic Acts Festival 2015, at the Stedelijk Museum. For more information, please click here.

More information about the artist:

Florian Hecker (b.1975) lives in Kissing, Germany. His most recent work Formulation (FLV Project)., (2014) was presented as part of the inaugural exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Recent exhibitions and performances include those at Künstlerhaus Graz, Austria and Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, 2015; Sadie Coles HQ, London; MD72, Berlin; Articulação, Lumiar Cité, Lisbon; documenta 13, Kassel, Germany;  Nouveau Festival, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (all 2012);  MIT Saarinen Chapel, Cambridge, MA; Push & Pull, Tate Modern (both 2010). In 2010 he staged exhibitions at MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany IKON Gallery, Birmingham and Chisenhale Gallery, London. He has an extensive discography with over 25 releases, including: Articulação (Editions Mego, Vienna, 2014); Chimerization (Editions Mego, Vienna, 2012); Speculative Solution (Editions Mego, Vienna, 2011); Acid in the Style of David Tudor (Editions Mego, Vienna, 2009).