Happiness Machine — The Movies and the Compositions

Elizabeth Hobbs / Carola Bauckholt — The Flounder

The Flounder is an experimental interpretation of A Fisherman and his Wife by the Brothers Grimm. This 18th century German tale is a beautifully structured moral narrative about greed, in which a person is driven to acquire more and more wealth at the expense of the environment. Carola Bauckholt and Elizabeth Hobbs will present the story using new tools and processes with the aim of encouraging reflection and promoting a sustainable and auspicious way of life.
—Elizabeth Hobbs, Carola Bauckholt, 2018

Rebecca Blöcher / Eva Reiter — Lickalike

In Lickalike we give voice to our reflections on the necessity and the character of artificial and natural forms of organisation. The focus – both visual and auditive - is on the connectivity between everything that is alive. From this point of view, the work examines such self and externally organised systems that have become the basis of our current social understanding.

It’s all about individual and social identity, about interconnectedness and collectivity, social responsibility and our digital and natural living environment.

A prevailing situation can always be seen from various perspectives. The film follows various narrative threads, some of which evolve into utopian contexts of development and meaning. Fragments of organised connectivity are extracted and reassembled; the whole context is fragmented – but nonetheless it becomes apparent: Everything is connected.
—Rebecca Blöcher, Eva Reiter, 2018

Eni Brandner / Misato Mochizuki — PANTOPOS

Starting out in a seemingly old-fashioned world of grandeur and glamour, PANTOPOS takes us on a journey of discovery to a surreal and peculiar place of new and abstract ideas, where nothing is as it used to be. The only thing left that is familiar to us are the people who inhabit this place, and their gestures. In the end we are left with the question whether this new place is just a dream or already part of our reality.
—Eni Brandner, Misato Mochizuki, 2018

Joanna Kożuch / Ying Wang — Music Box

In a circus, an ensemble of acrobats tries to create a perfect pyramid of human bodies. However, one of them has problems with his hand and cannot hold his colleague so that the pyramid collapses. The choreographer now has three options to achieve his goal: He can replace the injured acrobat with a new, more capable person; he can replace the whole ensemble, or keep the team, but find the right spot in his choreography for everyone involved. All three processes can have the same result; however the essential difference lies the path that takes them there.
—Joanna Kożuch, Ying Wang, 2018

Samantha Moore / Malin Bång — Bloomers

Bloomers takes a lively view of the sewing room environment at Headen and Quarmby, a family run lingerie factory, which provides jobs for unemployed locals. The film combines an original score incorporating sounds of the sewing room and interviews with employees, with animation that remarkably has been created by printing drawings onto fabric. In Bloomers, we catch a glimpse of the working lives of British factory workers.
—Samantha Moore, Malin Bång, 2018

Vessela Dantcheva / Electric Indigo — Hierarchy Glitch

In a purely abstract way, Hierarchy Glitch deals with a core idea of the Common Good Economy model. Both its visual patterns and the ensemble’s voices are tied up in hierarchical behaviour that restrains the full potential and mobility of each individual element. Soon the matrix pattern collapses, connections and directions are lost, resulting in entropic disorder. This is the moment when individual units autonomously connect with the rest, forming organic and balanced constellations. They develop a collective organism, a resilient entity.
—Vessela Dantcheva, Electric Indigo, 2018

Ana Nedeljković / Hanna Hartman — The Happiness Machine

The film is conceived as a simulation of a non-existent Video-game concerned with the business practices of a company which at first sight seems ideal. However, what happens if we look at the wider picture? Gradually, details are revealed -  details that show the real emotions of people, various malpractices, violations of human rights and the environment… The "ideal" space, conceived and guided by financial considerations as the key objective, is being deconstructed before our eyes.
—Ana Nedeljković, Hanna Hartman, 2018

Susi Jirkuff / Joanna Bailie — Measuring the Distance

The project explores urban edges as they correspond with the marginality of social groups who inhabit them. Distance, the anonymity of the architectural setup, decay, but also movement and interaction are subjects of a raw sketch that seeks to integrate a discussion about space and segregation into the discourse of the Common Good. The audio-visual language of the film uses a transparency and starkness of approach to reflect its subject matter. The fusion of architectural lines with sound through unexpected correspondences and synchronizations aims to generate a new kind of intermedial proposition.
—Susi Jirkuff, Joanna Bailie, 2018

Andrea Schneider / Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri — Generator / Operator

In our project we focus on the terms cooperation, trust, sharing and solidarity, which Christian Felber calls central values for the Common Good Economy. We want to translate these key terms into moving still lifes. The idea is for each term to create the atmosphere of a microcosm that works within itself and runs in an endless loop.

We are both fascinated by objects, their materiality, peculiarities and stories. Therefore we want to work with specific objects, both images and sounds, trying to reveal their essence.
—Andrea Schneider, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, 2018

Michelle Kranot / Iris ter Schiphorst — Suggestion of Least Resistance

Suggestion of Least Resistance is based on archive materials which depict The July Revolt of 1927 (Der Brand des Wiener Justizpalastes), a monumental episode still acutely relevant. The animation film is a rhythmic, poetic surge, comparing us, our lives, and our very humanness to burning paper in the breeze. Images of sheets of paper flying through the broken windows of the burning palace are juxtaposed with images of the crowds as they convene and disperse. The music charges these powerful images with its own aliveness and colour.

In the context of Economy for the Common Good, the repetitive, stylised abstractions of events unfolding frame the notion of the individual vs. the historic.
—Michelle Kranot, Iris ter Schiphorst, 2018

Musical direction: Konstantia Gourzi
Staging: Jacqueline Kornmüller
Dramaturgy: Peter Wolf
Musical dramaturgy: Uli Fussenegger, Krassimir Sterev
Sound design: Peter Böhm & Florian Bogner
Film projection: Martin Repka


Happiness Machine is a project of Klangforum Wien, Musik der Jahrhunderte and Amour Fou Vienna in cooperation with Tricky Women.
Funded by Cultural Affairs Department of the City of Vienna and Federal Chancellery of Austria with special funding from the German Federal Cultural Foundation and Interfaces/Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
The commissions to Iris ter Schiphorst, Malin Bång, Eva Reiter, Carola Bauckholt and Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri are funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

The video projections for "Happiness Machine" were realized with the software Isadora programmed by Mark Coniglio.