10/65: Self Mutilation is a 1965 experimental art short film directed by Kurt Kren and starring Gunter Brus. Kren and Brus were important figures of the Vieneese Actionist movement of the 1960s/1970s. The movement involed transgressive and often controversial art being exhibited throughout a variety of mediums, such as film and live protests they titled “Aktions”.
Composer and Sound Artist Theo Power found the Vieneese Actionist movement fascinating, in particular this specific film. Power was intrigued by the way Brus and Kren explore concepts such as self destruction and self pity in a incredibly violent but also moving way. Power decided to provide a score to this film for an exhibition at Whitechapels Gallery 46 during Feburary 2023.
10/65: Self Mutilation has no score or sound design in its original form, which in some ways helped Power with deciding how he would sonically explore this film, due to there being no sonic insperation that could occur due to there being no sound. Power explores themes of noise and drone throughout his work, and thought due to the extreme nature of the film that it would work well. Power used a variety of sounds in the work, featrued prominently is the sound of the Soma ETHER, a electromagnetic microphone that picks up frequencies of everyday life that us as humans do not hear. This was paired alongisde manipulated recordings of foley sessions conducted by Power. Many of the foley recordings were kept untouched, meanwhile some were processed through a granulator and effects, providing a surreal and uncomfortable sound. Finally, Power used strings that were playing tonal clusters, very much inspired by Krzysztof Penderecki and his use of tonal clusters and dissonance.
When composing to the film, Power was contemplating how to make the piece work in a collaborative way alongside his peers work, due to the graphic nature of the film it made sense for it to be further into the exhibition, so people wouldn’t be exposed to it at first site. Alongside the other sound for screen artists, we decided a room on the top floor with a curtain covering the room and the windows boarded up would work. This was so the projector image would be clear and the curtain would both block sound exiting and other exhibitions from entering somewhat, and it would also give a sense of immersion to the exhibition and the films being showed in the room.
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