STILL UND DUNKEL, Abandoned

released by Hallow Ground in November/December 2019

Standard Edition (300pcs)

- 2LP, 180 grams, gatefold cover with double inlay

- 64-page cahier with the essay ‘I hear the ruin of all space’ by writer and curator Brian Dillon

- 180 grams double vinyl 

- Digital (download code)

- Catalogue nr. HG1906, EAN: 0617957552577

Limited Edition (100pcs):

- 2LP, 180 grams, gatefold cover with double inlay 

- Additional LP with field recordings

- 64-page cahier with the essay ‘I hear the ruin of all space’ by writer and curator Brian Dillon

- Film Stills 2011–2019 (304-pages book)

- Digital (download code)

- Catalogue nr. HG1906, EAN: 0617957552577

Separate releases

- CD (500pcs)

- Film Stills 2011–2019, 304-pages book (100pcs), ISBN 978-3-033-07612-9

- 64-page cahier with the essay ‘I hear the ruin of all space’ by writer and curator Brian Dillon (700pcs), ISBN 978-3-033-07507-8

Orders

Limited and standard edition: 

Please order via: https://hallowground.bandcamp.com/album/still-und-dunkel-abandoned or via contact on this site.

Orders of Cahier «STILL UND DUNKEL, Fragments from Our Archive 2011–2019, a Chronology» and Book «Film Stills 2011–2019 book»:

Mail orders via contact on this site.

Available at the following stores: Never Stop Reading, Art books and OOR in Zurich, at Librium in Baden and in Winterthur at the shop of the Fotomuseum.

«Abandoned» and the print publications were kindly supported by the city of Baden, the Aargauer Kuratorium, the city of Zürich and the canton of Zürich. 

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Press text

STILL UND DUNKEL is the project of musician and visual artist Christoph Brünggel, film maker Benny Jaberg and media artist Pascal Arnold. Their debut album »Abandoned« comprises ten compositions created for their audiovisual art live performances which draw on an ever-growing archive of moving images and sound recordings. The three artists started working together in 2011 and visited abandoned and hidden places at night or underground throughout the world to collect images and sounds. The trio documents and archives the transformative processes that these former symbols of civilisation have been undergoing since they had been deserted or forgotten – that is, if they had ever before been accessible to the public in the first place.

»Abandoned« contains additional information on STILL UND DUNKEL as well as artwork by Arnold and Jaberg, including a 64-page booklet with images from the project and its creation as well as an essay by writer Brian Dillon. All that easily makes it one of the most ambitious releases on the Swiss-based Hallow Ground imprint to date. As the culmination point of eight years of archiving and performing the project, »Abandoned« is a monumental piece of art that over almost 80 minutes negotiates the historical implications of what it means when the achievements of the so called human progress are being left behind or remain hidden from the public consciousness. While Brünggel’s musical approach at first may appear to favour abstraction over the naturalism that dominates most projects based on field recordings, the artwork already clearly hints at a more complicated relationship between nature and human interference. Drawing explicitly on field recordings from man-made environments, »Abandoned« queries our very notion of authenticity, naturalness and how they can be (re-)constructed in artistic practice: have those reservoirs, bunkers, infirmaries or clinics and other sites become part of the natural world that slowly conquers them again? And if so, how can those specific sonic environments – beyond their visual representation through moving pictures – be adequately documented, interpreted and turned into art? The answers to these questions are not simple, and STILL UND DUNKEL accordingly does not provide easy listening. Already the 18-minute long opener »Lure« with its thundering swathes of noise that are punctuated by subtle bass thumps and nervously ticking sounds is an overwhelming piece of music. Its sheer loudness is far from the only thing that makes this piece as unnerving as it is. There also looms the uncertainty of where the surroundings – field recordings taken from inside the pillar of a bridge in Baden, Switzerland and from a subterranean, empty water reservoir in Zurich, Switzerland – can actually be heard in unmediated ways and where the artistic interpretation of the source sounds begins.

This specific use of field recordings and its manipulations continue throughout »Abandoned,« dovetailed with an alienating undertone evoked by the electronic soundscapes. The musical abstractions are constantly confronting the tangible sound recordings of the so-called reality – often melting together, but not without creating intense friction. »Flicker« for example is enriched with recordings of feedback that have been generated by emitting filtered noises of shortwave radio searches; all of which was set into a dialogue with the space itself, transforming the former sound source into a literal echo chamber for artistic experimentation. Even when on »Hallway« a human voice surprisingly enters the sonic picture, »Abandoned« only makes its inherent ambiguity even more palpable, adding to the already raised challenging questions of transformation of lost places and time itself. Every attempt at documentation is always already doomed to be only a temporary evidence of something that, in the meanwhile, has changed again. Well aware of that inherent contradiction, STILL UND DUNKEL – engl. quiet and dark – offer a glimpse into the ephemeral essence of things. As monolithic as it may look, feel and especially sound at first, »Abandoned« is a vivid work of transformation itself.

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Album tracklist:

A1 Lure (17:58)

B1 Remote (05:11)

B2 Seagull Night (10:10)

B3 Hallway (05:59)

C1 Flicker (07:01)

C2 Colossus (04:30)

C3 Rise (07:44)

D1 Portal (06:30)

D2 Dome (02:01)

D3 Transient (10:54)

Credits of the music album:

All music written and produced

by Christoph Brünggel

Mixed by Benoît Piccand, except track «Remote»,

which was mixed by Christoph Brünggel

Mastered by Arnold Kasar, Calyx Mastering Berlin

Cut by Norman Nitzsche, Calyx Mastering Berlin

Artwork and design

by Benny Jaberg and Pascal Arnold

Film stills by Benny Jaberg

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Credits of the cahier:

Design by Pascal Arnold

Film stills by Benny Jaberg

Drawings and sketches by Pascal Arnold

Scans and photos by Benny Jaberg, 

Christoph Brünggel, and Pascal Arnold

Essay  ‘I hear the ruin of all space’

by Brian Dillon

Notes on filming locations:

Historical research by Benny Jaberg and Pascal Arnold

Written by Benny Jaberg, in collaboration with Christoph Brünggel and Pascal Arnold

Translation, editing, and proofreading by Susie Trenka

Pre-press and printing

by Longo AG, Bolzano, Italy

Number of copies: 700 

ISBN 978-3-033-07507-8

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Credits of the book Film Stills 2011–2019

Cinematography, selection of film stills, and book layout by Benny Jaberg

Mise-en-scène and lighting by Pascal Arnold, Christoph Brünggel, and Benny Jaberg

Editing and proofreading by Susie Trenka

Pre-press and printing by Longo AG, Bolzano, Italy

Number of copies: 200

100 as part of the special edition of the album ‘Abandoned’/100 additional copies 

ISBN 978-3-033-07612-9