DEATH IN PRAGUE II Questions: Sascha Ziehn for Testcard Magazine. 1. THE MUSIC OF AUTOPSIA In how far is music important for Autopsia? Can the music of Autopsia be described as an end in itself or do you use it as a medium to transport (generally speaking) informations? After the work on "Death is the mother of beauty", sound becomes the most important and almost the only medium of interest Thanks to technology of production and sound-control, Autopsia can, on the basis of operating the sound, fulfill all aspirations which it has been attaining earlier, by combining different media. For me, music is "most comfortable medium". I have always tried to express all my aspirations with sound images. As much as it was possible I used all available means. Project Autopsia is a concept which, depending on accessible technology, completely realizes itself in sound. Music certainly is not a means of transmission of something into something. It is an area of creation in strict sense. But here an important distinction must be made For Autopsia music language is a method of constructing sound images. Music art and entire musical heritage are the medium, but not for transmitting messages, they are the building material for sound projects that can only conditionally be accepted as "making of music". If one takes a look back in Autopsia's musical and artistically development, it may seem that the first works (like "Oscularum rnfame") sometimes remind to early so-called Industrial Music, as they included very dark and monotonous tracks. The first CDs (Death Is the Mother of Beauty and Palladium) went more into the direction of collage-music. The latest works (Silence Of The Lamb, Kristallmacht and especially Humanity Is The Devil 16041994) clarify, that Autopsia became composers of classical music themselves. Would you agree on this brief description of Autopsia's musical development? On a level of appearance this might look so, but on the level of method it can hardly be spoken of an "artistic development". I think that new projects, in challenge with new technologies, have made the method more clear, rather than that they were in the service of conceptual changes. I was always interested in production and sound control as a way of "composing" no matter what sound source are Human voice, acoustic instruments, noises or sounds generated by computer, are only the "catalogue" of choice for me This is the material that correspond to actual interest; listen to some recent materials: Welt ist von Erz or Condemnation of Robin Hood, for instance Autopsia was always interested in composition disregarding the genesis of the sound. The fact that in recent times the greater part of the material is from European classical tradition does not yet mean that I compose classical. Does any development of Autopsia happen in an intellectual way or on a more emotional basis? Some of Autopsia projects are constructed on a "highly defined" emotionality. But if you think of emotionality as spontaneous, uncontrolled activity and about intellectuality as some kind of a high control, then the answer is to be found out of the scope of dualities stated in such manner. If this pair of opposites is placed into the question of Chaos and Logos, then my work would rather belong to the area of their connections, to the border area of transition where their interrelations are constantly established anew. It is always something new, either
for me or for those who receive my products. Otherwise there would be no desires or challenges. Since you moved to Prague, some things seem to have changed: There is more music from Autopsia than ever, while hardly any printed works, flyers or other graphics are published. Would you say that Autopsia developed more to what one may call a "band" and got away from the context of "concept art" as it may have been before? By arriving to Prague nothing has happened with the concept of Autopsia. Working environment has changed, it became more suitable - a new field of inspiration unavoidably has opened. Prague is the city of music; Prague is "Geistzentrale der Welt". In the press release sheet of "Palladium" CD, there is sentence by Jozef Ahmed which says: "Songs of Autopsia are wanderer songs. They are stations on a great endless wanderer’s path which has a certain goal and yet perhaps it leads to nowhere (...)" I always had the feeling that songs of Autopsia leads not into nowhere but into history. When I listen to an Autopsia album I feel surrounded by some kind of 'historical feeling". Furthermore, I become aware of history, especially because of the musical quotes from different époques. Am I correct to say that History is in fact the Nowhere Ahmed is talking about? That could be understood in that way too, on condition that one doesn't think of history as of "knowledge" about the past AUTOPSIA is aware of the historical foundation of its own work, but it constantly takes care about not being drowned into the history. Therefore the history is in a special way the "material" with which projects of AUTOPSIA manipulate. It could be said that in the works of AUTOPSIA the history is constructed in the same way as the sound material; historical references create autonomous "historical images" this leading the whole set of problems to the understanding of time. In this way it is very possible that the constancy of contextualization, which is in permanent shift, could be seen as NOWHERE. 2. VIEWS ON HISTORY Do you see history as a continual process or do you think that in history, every decade or century is just the repetition of previous epoch? Do you think there is an epoch in history which can be considered as a "classical" époque (like Ancient Greece)? What do you think characterizes the epoch we live in? Interpretation of past in sequences of time- measuring doesn't have any meaning for Autopsia project Past is important as much as it is active/creative. Greatness of an epoch is judged by science on the basis of artifacts. It is not enough to be productive. We are not judges of our own epoch - comparing our own time/epoch with someone else's we are getting into the operating of ideas/notions explaining the experiences not of our own. So it doesn't matter any longer what is "better" but what is "more productive", labeling time is worth as some "time guide" for certain purposes. I'm not burden with time determinism, but I don't deprive myself of the historicity of my own existence. Autopsia is a project that enables me to seize my own existence from the oblivion, to put my own Self into motion. To be in history means to be different, to separate oneself from the crowd. To me it seems that Autopsia demand some kind of "Renaissance". Would you agree on this, or do you aim a completely new decade without re-activating or re-valuating any ideals or values from ancient times? Would you consider Autopsia as "traditionalists"?
Autopsia doesn't support and doesn't make demands, it doesn't announce through declarations, it doesn't invite to some kind of turn from real to real - it observes with its own eyes [autos-opsis]. Why are many quotes from Autopsia written in German language? What are the reasons for this affiliation towards German language? The question of language is necessary the question of history. To be in history, to get one's own Selfhood, to form the identity - means the right to choose Choice of language is like a jump into abyss - the demonstration of decisiveness, the right to owns identity. One doesn't endanger here only the relation towards the other but the relation toward the world, it is impudence toward destiny. All "humanistic" reasons thus become inferior. To deprive oneself of a language means to deprive oneself of the world, to stand in front of the unknown. Isn't it a challenge of nobility? Like nomads, always in motion, never at home - always under the face of heaven. When you open your eyes you don't see anything known, domestic, confidential; motionless in constant moving you stand in front the face of the first and the last that are looking at you. 3. THEORY/LANGUAGE/FHILOSOPHY/RELIGION Autopsia once quoted that they are "elitist", and that only an "elite" is able to understand the messages Autopsia send out. What are the characteristics of these elite you are talking about? What do Autopsia mean with the demand for "Aristocracy as a personal quality"? Who should these "aristocrats" be and what are the special qualities that will make them "aristocratic"? To be "elitist" or an "aristocrat" means to be separated. In order to be separated you'll have first to think about yourself as an individual, and this means that you must have your own project Aristocracy after all differs from the collective because it is devoted to project because it has the consciousness about its own history. To be an elitist means to live authentically. This doesn't at all mean to belong to some social stereotype. In an interview from 1985, you quoted, that your future plan is to build a New Cathedral What kind of religion should this New Cathedral represent? Have you already succeeded in building up this New Cathedral? New Cathedral is a title of a project it is a metaphor and it has nothing in common with religious or mystic references. Production after 1994 clearly shows how this project developed. Do you believe there are any such things as "Absolute Naturwahrheit"? If so, what is it? Has this "Absolute Naturwahrheit" anything to do with the "Monumental Ordnung"? (I'm referring to the book you are holding in your hands on a photo from RAUT magazine). Human beings possess a limited power of managing and control, I don’t look at "natural" as something which stands opposite to "human". Human beings are medium with which Nature reflects itself. What do Autopsia, Medicine and Catholicism have in common? (I'm referring to the quote
"Medicina Catholica - Autopsia") Medicina Catholica is an alchemical term and a name of the label/organization under which I promote my side-projects: HUSSITE, SPIJENDOR SOUS, KARL ROSSMANN. A promotional flyer for "International Aeterna" says:"Our conviction was born in blood" What exactly is Autopsia's conviction? On another flyer there is a quote that says "[Autopsia] (_.) ist erster Baustein gewaltiger Tat" Autopsia uses the language and its forms in the same way as it uses musical phrases. Operating the ideas/notions means to use metaphoric features of language - like in poetry. 4. THE GRAPHIC WORK OF AUTOPSIA In the graphic works of Autopsia, one can find mixture of symbols from many ĂŠpoques like from the Ancient Greece, the Middle-Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque or the Historicism. What is the idea behind this mixture of elements from these different ĂŠpoques? Autopsia use many symbols from Christian iconography. What is Autopsia's attitude towards Christianity? In the last years, the term "Retro" became quite popular in the discussion on arts. As Autopsia mix up aesthetic elements from different historical epochs, would you consider Autopsia as 'Retro-"? Autopsia uses image as much as it is as ICON, the meeting place of those characteristics that might easily be given with forms of wide communication. In its visual works it carries out an act of montage of trivial illustrations from marginal kinds of cheap-printed graphics (bizarre manuals, religious press..), whose common feature is that they more or less correspond with the theme of death, and besides that they have a strong emblematic potential. With skillful graphic manipulations these features are lead to the level of hyperbole where they, as product of pseudo-propaganda, still show only their CULTURAL SELLS. The omition of context of their authentic appearance by transmission into the region of high culture creates a needed dose of hermeticism and mystification to which this cultural region is inclined. Autopsia creates the images with which it arouses that which it destroys! Thus the doubled process is carried out-once, the relation towards the work is demonstrated through thematic and contextual field, and once, by manipulating the image, its own characteristic the testifying of death is shown, which is nothing else but the image itself Autopsia is acquainted with diabolical symbioses, alchemical metamorphoses, destructive orgies, mythomanic orchestrations, but its concept of the artistic does not share anything with mystic and occult nor with scientific knowledgeable and politically pragmatic. Autopsia is making use of media contents as codes and not of contents of the entire cultural areas which are reduced through media patterns Autopsia does not operate with images of cultural epochs and phenomenons in the way as they are represented through art and its history, it does not reach for them in modeling of retro-principle in order to show its rejection from modernism. Modernism is not understood through the art of modern whose spirit makes pact with technological progresses, but as the whole epoch whose spirit is opened out of the beginnings of classicism and in whose scope we think also today disregarding individual attempts of opposition. That is why the usage of "CLASSIC" or "MODERN" iconography does not put Autopsia once on the one and once on the other side nor makes its legibleness inconsistent Autopsia simply does not act as opposition, it does not speak in dichotomies art- politics, national-international, classicavant-garde, rational-irrational etc.
Do you think that something like "genius" is possible for humans? Would you say, that there was (or that there is) any human being that could be described as a "genius"? If so, what characterizes a human "genius"? Modern notion of "Genius" is created on the basis of rediscovering the ancient hero, on the renaissance escape from the terror of collectivity, and until today is mostly worn-out The individual [The One] has, after all, as any difference has, disappeared in the general terror of western efficiency. Baudrillard recently wrote regarding war in Bosnia that West is "an objective ally in the operation of cleaning the future Europe, of liberating it from inconvenient minorities, and of making the future world order liberated from radical challenging of its own values - values of the democratic dictatorship of human rights and the transparence of the market What the West wants to impose now to the whole world, under the veil of universality, are not its values, which are completely broken, it is exactly the shortage of values. Everywhere where some particularity, some minority, some particular language, some passion or faith that cannot be subjugated, some antagonistic vision of the world, still survives or exists, it is necessary to impose indifferent order -as much indifferent as we ourselves are indifferent toward our own values. This terrorism is not fundamentalistic; it is a terrorism of culture without ground. It is a matter of integrism of the void". Where in such concept of the world you can see a place for human being as a "genius"? When you talk about the cultural capitals of Europe, you also mention names like Kafka, Casanova, Dvorak, Bartok or Wittgenstein. What do these individuals mean from Autopsia? Is the work of Autopsia influenced by these individuals, and if so, in which way? My interest is self-controlled, programmed personality - the one that is absolutely aware of its place in the world and its own capabilities, each one of them is in his own way close to my attitudes about the destiny of the individual. Would you agree on the first and on the final quote from Wittgenstein’s "Tractatus logicophilosophicus"? (“The world is everything, what the case is" and "One cannot say anything about something he does not know anything about"). Yes, of course. A famous quote from Leibniz says, that we "live in the best of all possible worlds". As I suppose that you don't agree on this (or do you?), in which world do we live in? Autopsia is not interested in "better" or "worse" worlds; it's not the matter of the questions of quality how Leibniz knew it is the matter of "unchangeableness" of the world outside us. We don't choose worlds like prĂŞt-a-porter. Do you leave the "1" when staling the century we live in (e.g. "985" instead of "1985") for any philosophical reason? It is the matter of the signature of an artwork, it points to the relationship towards one's own product. The product of Autopsia is the artwork. Thus we touch the question of "philosophical reason".
Is Autopsia's thinking based on any imperative (e.g. the "categorical imperative" stated by Kant)? If so, what are these imperatives Autopsia's thinking is based on? No, I hope that previous explications clearly show the relation toward this question. It often seems that Autopsia is a work of art on its own without any visible individuals involved in the work. The individuals seem to vanish behind the work of Autopsia, and the only thing that is in fact sending out messages is Autopsia itself and not the individuals, which may use Autopsia as an artificial medium. It even seems that Autopsia is an individual itself/himself. Would you say, that being involved in Autopsia demands total commitment towards the aims of the "(Artificial) Individual Autopsia"? Personalization of Autopsia reminds some kind of Frankenstein project doesn't it? Yes, this is involved into the structure of my ideas about acting. That demands careful modeling of the means of expressing and thought out performing since the value of the work is equally measured through complete concept and through single work. Works are not just simple sum of artifacts but a set of interactions that are "provoked" by their appearance. In this constellation there also disappears personality of the artist work is authorized by the group, or pseudo group, by which the diffusion of acting is emphasized. Group does not gather in order to, by means of collectiveness, promote individual projects, nor the strengthen the position of individuals. It is immanent to the very concept itself behind which stands a leading personality while other members join as collaborators. In my article in Notes magazine, I did the following interpretation of your theory on "Death". You presume that humans lost the fear of death. As the fear of death makes humans individuals - in contradiction to "society" which is immortal in a meta-historical sense human looses their individuality when they become part of society because they lie their mortality. As you want to bring back the consciousness of mortality, you want to bring back the consciousness of individuality. Is this interpretation correct? Interpretation is correct when the mortality of individual is in question, and not the mortality of the collective. However Autopsia doesn't speak about "fear of death", Autopsia speaks about OBLIVION of death, about the attempt to build the Selfhood on "credit cards", in indirect way, on durably postponed responsibilities. In that case, that what waits us at the end of the road appears as the fear. But if mortality of one's own being is not "postponed paying" then things develop completely different. Maybe we are going to start to live this experience again?