Follow-Up: Conny Frischauf

Conny Frischauf is a sound and visual artist based in Vienna, Austria. They studied transdisciplinary arts (TransArts) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, regularly perform, sound, conduct workshops and lectures, repair and build audio equipment, score films and performances, host, listen, write and walk. Since 2024, they have been running Sedimente, a platform that slowly interlayers through text, sound, space, and more.

Dear Conny, tell us briefly what have you been working on during your residency?

I was working on Dwin City – a long term-work and research dealing with the Danube river through nonlinear and situated approaches. 

What has changed over the course of the residency?

I have been experimenting with (non) structures, images, text and (counter) context of Dwin City, which evolves from sound, listening, situation, and currently spins further into an audio-visual spatial installation.

Additionally I was performing sounds of Dwin City live at the cashier hall of Postsparkasse in the first part of my residency – therefore I reworked the compositions in the first days of my stay. 

What does interdisciplinary work mean to you?

To what extent does it come into play in your work, why?

"Shifting between strategies, one becomes multiperspectivist instead of affording a single central perspective, like that of a false universalism promoted by the single European white masculine eye. Shifting the scale, one becomes no one. If you are no one, you are not localized,[…], devoid of pupils, outside the range of iris-scan detection, a shell without a ghost. Better Ann Lee before entering contemporary art rather than Wonder Woman, zero rather than one, mirror rather than real, echo rather than sound, no one rather than someone." (Alina Popa)

I prefer to talk situations rather than in disciplines. 

Were there any encounters or aha experiences that inspired you during your residency? Can you briefly describe them?

I had an important moment during the last week of the residency. After the stress of the public formats such as performance and open studio day calmed down, I was finally able to make space for experimentation. 

A structure within the work showed up, that was always there, but I couldn’t see it – until then. I understood something very important. 

In the second part of your residency, you worked more with text, in contrast to the sound-based focus at the beginning. How do transitions between different media occur in your practice?

Sound and text are both important part of my practice. Through text and rearranging words I rearrange meaning. This helps me to question my own structures of thinking and confronts the linearity of thoughts. The transitions are natural. Every moment needs something else. 

What do moments of overlap look like, and when do you tend to focus on a primary medium?

This depends on what the process or a work needs. Overlaps have always happened naturally – the only time when these were put into question was during my studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. A working class socialization and DIY context bring, out of necessity, shifting and merging disciplinarities.

What role does language play in your work, do you see it more as a material, a limitation, or a form of resistance? And how does this relate to your interest in the unspeakable or the invisible? 

Language is sounds. Language means exchange. 

I am not really comfortable with looking at language or sound as material. It seems to me, that calling it material in the context of artistic production these important narrators soon become objectified, as well as not relatable, like something to be judged outside of oneself. I try to resist the idea of static material in space through the dedication to and acknowledgement of relations and influence. Decay.

I believe in poetry and that through how language is used and reflected one is able to change how to talk about; relate; imagine, and resist. 

Language is always relational and therefore influences how we see, name, understand and exchange. 

My interest in the unknown is driven only by the conscious act of acknowledgment for it. 

How has your perception of the space between Vienna and Bratislava changed through your research and artistic process during the residency?

I am working on Dwin City for around 2-3 years now and every moment I am able to dedicate to the work is precious and important. 

Along the Danube, what kinds of memories, traces, or forms of hidden knowledge did you encounter? Were there specific narratives, absences, or tensions that stayed with you?

Dwin City deals with various narratives that come naturally when working in the context of rivers, border areas, empire, colonial past and present, transit, national parks, and so on. Situated practice allows to enter these in a very immediate way. What has been and is still ‘showing’ to me helps me to understand  dis/connections. 

I am not specifically looking for something hidden, but I am sure that there are certain tensions that culturally are neglected or made invisible for specific reasons. 

One needs to be careful in all of these terms carrying a certain responsibility. 
There is a fine line between excavation, extraction, observation and perception. 
Not only in physical terms.