“The Phenomenology of Disappearance” stems from a continual interest in the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and its essential motif of master and slave. Hegel regarded this dialectic as the source of self-consciousness, a radical articulation that introduced to western philosophy the idea of how the other constitutes the Self. The piece features a libretto based on texts dialectically referring to Hegel‘s work, composed by composer Maya Dunietz and interpreted by singer Jessica Gadani, in the mostly abandoned space of Kunsthalle Mannheim. Commissioned as a live performance for the festival Mannheimer Sommer, it had to be restructured as a video due to the pandemic, and became a hybrid of film, sculpture and music-theater. Initially presented at the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, a later iteration was developed for the exhibition “Pleasure Activism” at Neue Galerie Innsbruck.
2020: Premiere \ Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheimer Sommer
2021: Neue Galerie, Künstler*innen Vereinigung Tirol, Innsbruck
