Syllabus

On 18. 04. 2012, as part of the concert series "open music", which has long since advanced to a fixed institution in the contemporary avant-garde-progressive music scene, a truly special concert took place at the Forum Stadtpark in Graz; not only special because of its musical execution and instrumental line-up, but also because of its sonic-visual conception. Thus, the Watschen Institute in its top-class line-up consisting of Maja Osojnik (Paetzold double bass recorder, loop machines, effects), Raumschiff Englmayr, Matija Schellander (modular synthesizer) and Daniel Lercher (computer) tried to induce lucid dreams with the collective compositionW.I.L.D..What are lucid dreams? According to an article in a relevant free online dictionary, a lucid dream is a lucid dream in which the dreamer is aware that he is dreaming. Accordingly, the musicians gave themselves to the service of research and tried to initiate a seemingly musical-sound neuropsychological experimental arrangement by means of visual stimuli of so-called Dreammachines in order to enable the audience to drift off into a lucid dream world.So what are Dreammachines? Again consulting a witty online dictionary: A Dreamachine or dream machine is a kind of lamp that produces a flickering stroboscopic effect for optical stimulation.

Learn how to induce a W.I.L.D.

After entering a darkened concert space in the basement of Forum Stadtpark, the four performing musicians were found in the center of the hall, each with a Dreammachine behind them, around which the audience positioned itself.

The musicians generate a pulsating sound surface that has the character of a sound continuum circling through the space, modeled after the dream machines spinning on turntables. This floating-pulsating sound sphere is impressively realized by the instrumentalists and sonically supported by well-timed sound samples and loops. They try to create sounds that seem to be out of this world, like a lucid world of sound and dreams. After about 30 minutes of pure soundscape, the light bulbs within these spinning Dreammachines begin to glow and a flickering "stroboscobic" light fills the room, with the soundsphere seeming to fade into the background. What was initially an entirely sonic space becomes a "visual sound" that floods the room; what remains is a soundscape flickering in the light of the dream machine.The cleverly used sound riffs, loops and sound effects in combination with those initially seemingly simple visual effects do not fail to have their psychedelic effect, and perhaps some may have succeeded in diving into a wake-induced-lucid dream world ("unfortunately" not for me); so for me, as an auditory-observant individual, the musical rather than the visual-stimulating event was in the foreground.Repetitive droning sound patterns, like a hammering, try to make the listener aware of the sonic component again and gradually "wake him up" to prevent an outright drifting of some into an unconscious dream world. The continuous sound surface seems to disappear until only the hammering remains, which also seems to sink into the silence. An unusual listening event, paired with a perceptual-psychological experiment, visual effects and an appealing performance by the instrumentalists. Predicate: definitely "worth hearing and seeing"! Tinnitus for all!