Composition

Only a few hundred metres away from the location of the sound installation, the ongoing demolition of the press plant at Bochum’s former Opel factory can be observed. In the middle of the 20th century, Adam Opel GmbH (Ltd.) acquired Dannenbaum I, a disused colliery site; before 2014, up to 11,600 workers were employed here. A state-of-the-art DHL mega parcel-sorting centre is currently opening at adjacent premises. In a few months, 600 employees will be sorting up to 50,000 parcels per hour in three shifts.

Similar transformational processes have been taking place in many parts of Europe and across the world for decades, the post-industrial era forging landscape and society alike. Louis Henderson and João Polido researched the region for the musical echo accompanying such changes. The result is a musical essay that describes music as a form of embodied spatio-temporal resistance to industrial capitalism. The artists’ work includes samples that were created as a reaction to alienated working conditions, returning them via playback to the vacated factory spaces of the Opel site and recording their echo. The composition also includes fragments of reggae and jazz, musical traditions that go back to the exploitation and oppression experienced by African slaves. By way of contrast, elements of house and techno describe the physical liberation from the spatial and temporal binds of Fordism’s shift work.

To accompany the walk-in installation, the artists are airing five radio essays narrating their research into the connections between industrial work and music. In interviews with regional and international musicians, they trace the impact that industrialisation and migration have had on the production of music.