Chaya Czernowin

20. Jänner 2011, 14:32

As I started to write the piece, immersing myself in the sound world of the beginning became a kind of passion. The sounds were like water, so transparent and evasive, yet so basic and essential that they were healing a thirst. Having to turn away from my desk to the other activities of the day was increasingly difficult. (…) This was around September October 01, and it coincided with the events of September 11th, where thousands of people got killed, the American reaction which killed many in Afghanistan, and the strong wave of patriotism which swept America making itself felt everywhere on the street. During that time, people were killed, killing, and exploding daily in the Middle East, death fueled by anger and injustice. (…) Consider our blind and mechanical reactions to loaded political situations: Our readiness to infuse the individual identity with a collective one; our need to belong and establish an ‚US’ positioned against the ‚THEM’. Our hardening into RIGHT group, pointing a blaming finger at the WRONG group; and the desperate pull of the whole herd as it presses all individual doubts to reach a place of false collective security in the sea of fear. A place where hesitations and self questioning are erased by the group certainties. Maim zarim maim gnuvim is the experience of these conflicts as the internal water is being stolen away to become infused with foreign, strange water. Music can be a voice of the collective, a voice pushing towards the collective, but I wish for music which enables us to experience a doubt, an uncertainty, to question one self and most importantly connects us to our individuality. It is only from this self-questioning that an opening and change can begin. (…)