Take Over – a video and sound installation comprising two films – addresses central themes in Anri Sala’s oeuvre, exploring the relationships between music and narrative, architecture and film and interleaving qualities of different media in both complex and intuitive ways to produce works in which one medium takes on the qualities of another.

A conceptual point of departure are two well-known musical works, affiliated by an entangled political and cultural history, the Marseillaise and the Internationale. Written in 1792, the Marseillaise was closely tied to the French Revolution but also quickly spread to other countries where it became a symbol for the overthrow of oppressive regimes. Thus the 1871 lyrics of the Internationale were initially also set to the tune of the Marseillaise, until 1888 when its original music was composed and the song became the standard anthem of the socialist movement. Both anthems have undergone major changes in their political connotations: from revolution, restoration, socialism, resistance and patriotism, to additional associations with colonization and oppression in the second half of the twentieth century (as national anthems of France and the Soviet Union, respectively). Yet to this day their meaning remains in flux, as the two songs continue to be appropriated. Take Over makes audible the close relationship of these two political anthems and mines the musical kinship for traces of this changing symbolic significance. Sound literally determines the films, whose changing focus is tied to musical tones and the movement of the keys producing them – even if the underlying system remains elusive.

Both films have been originally conceived to run simultaneously with their respective soundtracks playing in tandem. For this presentation, the films will be screened one after the other.

Take Over features pianist Clemens Hund-Göschel.

Mixed Behaviour Reloaded, 2018
Performance
Duration approx. 30 min