Kategorie: Interdisciplinary

Bandcamp Release on Friday, August 6th 2021

Future Songs is a concept album. The idea was to have a fictitious future band sung songs about the past. These songs would then be a comment on our present.

Originally, Dragonfly was one of my solo projects. In my home studio, I started combining electric guitar with instruments I had only played for a couple of years: pedal steel guitar and a selection of electronic instruments.
During Covid-19 lockdown periods, Dragonfly grew into a virtual band including two musicians from South Africa collaborating online, and a Swiss string quartet being recorded in a nearby castle.

The idea for Future Songs had crossed my mind three or four years before. In the meantime, the world and thus my concept have changed in many unexpected ways. As concerns the future, I was lost for words more often than not. Consequently, most Future Songs turned out to be instrumental pieces. Some of the scarse lyrics are still reminiscent of the original concept, while others have turned out a little more personal. The poem I am reading in Future Angst for instance is a reflection of my late father’s fear of dying.

Future Songs is now available as a digital album. Artfully mastered by internationally renowned Bob Katz at Digital Domain, USA. High resolution audio files in 24bit/96kHz WAV or AIF emphasizing the warmth and depth of the original recordings may be downloaded from Bandcamp only.

Installation and Soundtrack by Philipp Zuercher

Velostation Bicycle Parking Bahnhof Bern
March 5th Trough April 3Rd, 2021

Kunst kreuzt Weg is an annual event by Open Parish Heiliggeist Bern, celebrating Passiontide. 14 contemporary artists are to create new interpretations on the traditional stations of the cross.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, this year’s event will be taking place in a different form: a kind of orienteering along places of public interest in the city of Bern. See map below.

Station of the Cross XII. „Dying“
(Installation and Soundtrack by Philipp Zuercher)
I consider my art to be some kind of «Dichtung» (poetry) in the sense of «Verdichtung» (densification), in both space and time, as a sculpture including a soundtrack.
Combining ancient metaphors and symbols in order to create new ones. Somewhere between life and death, where «dying» is taking place.
My father, who died a few weeks ago, claimed that dying was «each person’s end of the world». That made me think of the Apocalypse and consequently I compared the Book of Revelation with the Passion narrative and found some striking similarities as well as many a source of inspiration for this piece of art. I consider the result – visible as well as audible but only temporarily – to be some sort of manifestation.

On the Installation
A kind of crucifiction, composed of a guitar hero, the angel announcing the end of time, as well as Baron Samedi (Loa of Death and Resurrection) and Nataraja (Hindu deity Shiva’s reincarnation as the King of Dance).

On the Soundtrack
«Gloria» sung by an electronically alienated boys choir. Voices of Thunder in Chinese and Hebrew: «I am the One-Who-Will-Be», «I am the Beginning and the End» etc.
A synthesized singing bowl (of wrath?) moving across the skies. A guitar solo once referred to as schizoid by a female listener. And a poem on my father’s fear of dying.

Vera Rüttimann, a Swiss photographer based in Berlin, has analysed urban emergences of the human search for meaning for over a decade. While visiting Bern and the Kunst kreuzt Weg’s stations of the cross, she shot a series of strong images.