Introduction

trans-Art constitutes an intensified art experience through optimised synergy of audio-visual artistic collaboration. The main focus is on the dialogue of art genres and the opening of traditional, encrusted art-immanent barriers. The Composition graphique musicale is based on the concept of a dialogue between contemporary music and abstract drawing that continuously modulates interactively during the trans-Art performance. The large-scale drawing, the recorded video and the sound recording remain as the final product.

The dialogue arises spontaneously, without rehearsal, in the moment. It is always based on mutual inspiration, bidirectional action, abstract additive drawing and concrete and abstract sounds of new music. In this way, artists and audience enter into an artistic process of creation together - every trans-art performance is different..

A performance combines two art forms, visual art and new music (new music has been an integral factor since the beginning of the artistic work in 1993), but can also include dance, acrobatics or text.

As a visual artist with a deep appreciation for new music, Astrid Rieder began experimenting with trans-Art as early as the 1990s at private concerts organised by her. This evolved into the monthly performance series do trans-Art and the conceptual process of the Composition Graphique Musicale in her studio at Künstlerhaus Salzburg in July 2016.

I. Analysis of the trans-Art Performance

In a trans-Art performance, the artist creates an artistic dialogue with a musician in real time. For the visual action, the so-called paper canvas is fixed to a wall. The equipment is placed on a paint table.

This consists of graphic and paintable materials.

The sounds created by the drawing process are played back into the room through contact microphones and can be heard by the musician.

The length of the performance is usually about 40 minutes.

The outline of a trans-Art performance is given, but what exactly develops from it remains open. It is not important which one of the artists opens the performance - it is important that the performance takes place!

Before the trans-Art performance, Astrid Rieder conducts an interview with the performance partners, which is integrated into a radio programme. From the first moment onwards, the artists enter a bidirectional dialogue in which the different art forms meet at eye level. The traditional forms of performance are abandoned and a freely associative presentation emerges. Abstract lines, shapes and sounds interact, expand and complement each other. The drawing process is additive, i.e. already drawn images can be overdrawn and thus expanded during the trans-Art performance.

The artists thus show respect and trust during a performance, they observe and react. The audience can see how the artists listen to each other, creating a common level of dialogue where guidance and reaction can alternate in each artist.It is a dialogue in which music and drawing meet each other trustingly and benevolently and step together into the Compositon Graphique Musicale. An encounter with a stranger thus becomes an art-immanent conversation in which musician and artist work together towards a peaceful consensus.

After the performance, (1) an acoustic part, (2) a graphic part and (3) a documentary video remain. The acoustic part (sounds of the instrument, the spatial sound, the drawing noises) will be recorded and integrated into the radio programme "Atelier für neue Musik/trans-Art". Through the internet archive CBA, Cultural Broadcasting Archive, the sound of this performance is always accesible, thus not ephemeral. The graphic part includes the drawing, which is always changing through additive processes during the performance. A documentary video will be made in order to record the resulting work together with its various facets.

II. Workshops

To immerse yourself in trans-art and experience the art form for yourself. In order to enable interested people to experience this interpersonal dialogue, I developed the idea of a workshop. The workshop follows a timed concept:

In the first hour we talk about the possibility and impossibility of dialogue, in trans-art and in everyday life. Then we step together to the color table and talk about the use of the pens. When everything has been discussed, the performance begins. 

For one hour, participants are invited to try, experience, co-create and experience trans-art, the interaction of free-tonal sounds and abstract drawing for themselves. Within this hour, participants can try themselves as graphic artists.

Each participant can work with a musician on the paper canvas for 5 minutes at a time. After 5 minutes there will be a change. I invite three musicians to participate in this experience. Each musician interacts twice, for 10 minutes, and then is replaced by the other.

A display above the paper screen shows the exact time span of 5 minutes. The musicians are positioned in such a way that they can easily see their performance partner during the interaction.

The trans-Art workshop is intended for adults, groups, companies and can be requested upon request.

Registration: mail@astrid-rieder.com

III. The History of trans-Art

trans-Art developed out of Astrid Rieder's work over many years.

The first steps were already taken in the 1990s when she took part in a painting seminar in St. Virgil with Wolfgang Seierl (painter and composer from Vienna) in 1993. There, together with other participants, she drew unidirectionally to sounds by Morton Feldman, György Ligeti and John Cage. This was followed by further participation in painting seminars in the attic of the Gemacherhaus behind the cathedral, where the Baron Schwarzenberg Hall is located today.

 From 1996 to 2006, Astrid Rieder organised private concerts (peak in 2006: 74 people in her own living room), which produced the first interdisciplinary experiences. Among other things, premieres of new music, readings and video productions were presented. She repeatedly took part in the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts at the Salzburg Fortress (class Xenia Hausner, class Hella Berent and Kimberly Bradley) and from 2000 to 2006 in painting seminars with Johannes Ziegler in Salzburg.

With the move to the studio in the Techno-Z in Itzling in 2007, a new era began. The private concerts became studio concerts and more and more different art forms were integrated.

Until 2010 the studio concerts took place in Itzling, then, after the move to the Künstlerhaus in 2011, in the Great Hall of the Künstlerhaus. The low-threshold access made it possible for a broad audience (highlight in 2011: 180 visitors in the Great Hall of the Salzburg Künstlerhaus!) to access new music and transdisciplinary art.

Later, Astrid Riederndecided to focus more on her own art-making and began to commit to more trans-Art performances at home and abroad.

Through her participation in music-theoretical seminars at the Mozarteum with Christian Ofenbauer, she expanded her artistic endeavours.

The term Composition Graphique Musicale evolved at the closing event of the Schmiede in 2016. At the Perner Insel work show, the term Composition Graphique emerged from a conversation with Maurin Donneaud, media artist from France. This was later expanded on during a studio visit by Beatrix Zobl in the Künstlerhaus studio and is now called Composition Graphique Musicale.

In the meantime, trans-Art has become a coined term and is made accessible to anyone and everyone through regular events, such as the do trans-Art series, which has been held monthly on the 2nd Thursday since July 2016. In her studio at Bundesstraße 37 in Wals near Salzburg, Astrid Rieder creates and presents trans-Art.