TRAUMPROJEKT

His father was alive once more and was talking to him in his usual way, but [the remarkable thing was that] he had really died, only he did not know it'1 What we must bear in mind...is the radical ontological status of symptom: symptom, conceived as sinthome(synthetic-artificial man, synthesis between symptom and fantasy...), is literally our only substance, the only positive support of our being, the only point that gives consistency to the subject. In other words, symptom is the way we the subjects 'avoid madness', the way we 'choose something(the symptom-formation) instead of nothing(radical psychotic autism, the destruction of the symbolic universe)' through the binding of our enjoyment to a certain signifying, symbolic formation which assures a minimum consistency to our being-in-the-world.2 THEORY Traumprojekt create provocative combinations of sound and moving-image; exposing the porous boundaries between fantasy and reality embodied in found pop-cultural material taken from sources such as Youtube and site-specific field recordings. Working on the premise that cultural forms are analogous to a dream-logic that simultaneously represses and articulates an underlying trauma. We hope to create a context where an audience is able to see that it is (not literally; but culturally, politically, economically) dead, and that it does not know it. We wish to work against nihilism to generate a 'positive negativity' of fully reflexive 'symptoms of the body' being-in-the-world. PRACTICE Performance would consist of MAC-driven live mixing of sound and moving image using specially configured versions of VDMX 5. We would envisage subdued physical presence, instead all attention would be electronic audio-visual, requiring a reasonably substantial PA and visual delivery system. A recent 45-minute set performed at the Shambala music festival has enabled us to develop a basic technical understanding of live sound/image improvised performance. PERSONEL Traumprojekt is an embryonic collaboration between sound artist Soliton and experimental filmmaker Heinrich Von Kleist. We are relatively unknown within established art-world networks; literally 'outsiders' from the rural English hinterlands of Essex. WORK EXAMPLES 'Traum' 5:07 (Kleist / Soliton; July 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlr0Cbuidio 'Idyll' 14:01 (Kleist / Soliton; May 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfBtMYmQoQ8 'Wriggle Like a Fucking Eel' 4:45 (Kleist / unofficial video to Whitehouse track; July 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZt_VUvVXMg

1 Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 559 2 Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology, p. 81