(Palace of the Lots of Life)
a sound installation in dialogue with Leibniz, Deleuze and Bach (2022)

At the end of his “Theodicy”, Leibniz sketches the image of a gigantic pyramid, the “palace of the lots of life”, in whose infinitely many chambers all the different possible paths of life of a single human being exist in parallel. Each of these chambers contains its own world that is incompatible with the others. What would it be like to imagine these possible worlds all at the same time and in this way open up a “sense of possibility” for the contemplation of reality?

In the multi-channel sound installation in the form of a five-sided glass pyramid with structure-borne sound transducers, the five versions of the chorale “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” (O head full of blood and wounds) from Bach’s “St Matthew Passion” can be heard. Played on five historical keyboard instruments in different tuning systems, they overlap simultaneously and allow a virtual space of microtonal, incomposable sound worlds to be experienced. The recordings were made in collaboration with Eudald Dantí Roura on a clavichord, two harpsichords and two fortepianos.

Monastery church Bursfelde

St. Petri Dom Bremen, Ostkypta

commission by VISION KIRCHENMUSIK for Weserfestspiele 2022