berge brauchen
keine menschen
A collective voice confronts the mountain as cultural image, commercial spectacle and landscape indifferent to human presence.
CONCEPT
Originally created in 1993/94 for the Vienna event series wörter brauchen keine seiten, berge brauchen keine menschen brings together twenty-six members of the Finnish choir Mieskuoro Huutajat in front of a constructed Alpine backdrop. The performers repeatedly shout the sentence “mountains need no people”.
The work reverses the familiar human claim on the mountain. Rather than presenting landscape as refuge, resource or sublime spectacle, it confronts the viewer with a landscape that remains indifferent to human presence. The artificial scenery exposes the mountain as a cultural and media image, while the formally dressed choir transforms language into a physical event of breath, repetition and collective force.
Humour and aggression coexist. The idealised landscape remains motionless while the performers’ voices and facial expressions become increasingly excessive. The work questions the persistent myth of the mountain as an untouched and inexhaustible realm of nature.
ARTIST’S EDITED VERSION
2000 · 1 MIN 42 SEC · SOUNDberge brauchen keine menschen · artist’s edited version · 2000
Featuring members of Mieskuoro Huutajat
FROM ARTWORK TO
COMMERCIAL BROADCAST
In 1994, the work was acquired by HUMANIC and newly recorded for the company’s iconic advertising series with the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. This version was broadcast on Austrian television and radio in 1994 and 1995.
The transfer from an artistic intervention into commercial broadcasting became part of the work’s meaning. A statement rejecting the human appropriation of landscape entered a system of mass communication, repetition and consumption that continually reproduces the mountain as an image.
VIEW THE OFFICIAL HUMANIC SPOTHUMANIC broadcast version · 1994 · Arnold Schoenberg Chor
Original concept and artwork: Toni Kleinlercher
WORK HISTORY
Original contribution to wörter brauchen keine seiten, Literatur & Medien, Vienna
Acquired and newly recorded by HUMANIC with the Arnold Schoenberg Chor
Broadcast on Austrian television and radio
Artist’s edited video version
Schöne Aussicht, Kunst Meran, Merano, Italy · group exhibition
berge brauchen keine menschen · Mountainwork III
wörter brauchen keine seiten · Literatur & Medien · Vienna · 1993/94
Video and acoustic intervention
Twenty-six members of Mieskuoro Huutajat
2000 · 1 min 42 sec · sound
Schöne Aussicht · Kunst Meran · Merano, Italy · 2002