MELENCOLIA

MELENCOLIA APP was developed as a prologue and epilogue for the world premiere of the music theater show MELENCOLIA by Muntendorf/Lobeck, a work commissioned by Bregenzer Festspiele and Ensemble Modern. But it also works anytime and anywhere: If you have the app installed on your smartphone or tablet and use it to scan the MELENCOLIA QR codes, you can bring various AR creatures to life. If several people use the app at the same time in one place, the different sound tracks complement each other via the individual speakers to form a cell phone chorus of up to six voices. MELENCOLIA QR codes can be found, for example, at www.echofactory.org/melencolia.

Over centuries and cultures, melancholy experienced the most contradictory attributions; it was considered a physical illness as well as a moment of contemplation, a possibility of overcoming earthly suffering and a sister of genius. Albrecht Dürer's enigmatic creatures in his equally enigmatic copperplate engraving "Melencolia I" have become emblematic of these contradictions and the insoluble amidst human longing for redemption.
Based on Dürer's world, the music theater show MELENCOLIA establishes a melancholic playground of the kind that seems to have been lost to our overstimulated tired societies and the new, colonized digital worlds. With the MELENCOLIA APP you have the chance to bring Dürer's creatures into the now with the help of your smartphone or tablet and become part of a temporary melancholic community yourself.

Concept: Muntendorf/Lobeck
Composition: Brigitta Muntendorf
Graphics, animation and design: Veronika Simmering
Programming: vobe.digital
Production: ECHO Factory 2022

Funded by: The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media