wolfgang voigt: zukunft ohne menschen

On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Kompakt 2013 was invited to contribute to Cologne's highly reputed art fair, Art Cologne. For the event, Wolfgang Voigt designed, inter alia, a sound installation situated in the entrance area of the fair. In line with the cool steel and glass architecture, the abstract minimal "machine music" flowed out of the manually-operated arpeggiator. Under the title Zukunft Ohne Menschen, Voigt created a multimedia concept in 10 parts, composed of music, videos, and digital painting. Improvising with virtuosity on industrial sequencer and computer programs, Voigt created individual sound and visual artwork that comes alive only through the artist's unique style. The music sounds as if produced by a random generator, although it is made by hand, e.g. like a piano. From photos Voigt took in urban environments, he erased all images of people and text, using digital paint programs, and deformed them into abstract art. "Mechanical painting" is the term Voigt uses for this excessive style, in which no real paint flows and everything is revocable. The cursor, recorded on the film while painting over the photos, looks like a garden hose out of control, boring through the picture. With Zukunft Ohne Menschen, Voigt shares a title with a TV docu-fiction, which fantasizes in a not-entirely-serious manner about the planet's future following the disappearance of mankind. Using "dehumanized" digital machines, Voigt creates a striking acoustic and visual world with a unique artistic signature. The Man Machine 3.0. The release, now available as a deluxe book-CD format with a hard cover, comprises 10 pieces of music and 10 works of visual art. Includes a 24-page booklet. Limited to 500 copies worldwide.