The Moebius Strips
An Installation by Tim Story and Contributors
From the Sound and Art of Dieter Moebius
Contact: Russ Curry, russ@curiousmusic.us
An Invitation to Strip
Greetings from Russ Curry and Tim Story!
We are contacting you as one of a very select group of artists we are inviting to participate in our new project The Moebius Strips.
Our dear friend Dieter “Moebi” Moebius (Cluster, Harmonia, Brian Eno, Conny Plank) was the author of an inspiring and unorthodox musical legacy that left an indelible impression on many of our most curious musicians, perhaps including you. (In an interesting twist, Moebi was indeed related to the famed mathematician).
Tim has most recently focused on experimentation with appropriation, recontextualization, and presenting music in new conceptual frameworks. His current installation, The Roedelius Cells has been exhibited in museums in Europe and the U.S. and was featured at the Big Ears Festival in 2019. It has just finished a 7-week run at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, co-sponsored by the Goethe Institut.
What is The Moebius Strips?
The Moebius Strips is a multichannel audio installation for museums, festivals, galleries, and other public spaces.
Working with Moebi’s widow Irene, Tim has collected thousands of Moebi’s sounds, noises, samples, loops, and is reimagining/recombining these in patterned ‘strips’ which, out of the context of their original settings, will be combined with your contributions in new and ever-evolving layers in the installation’s soundstage.
In addition to the audio installation, Moebi’s visual art (he studied at Berlin’s Akademie Grafik), including his distinctive album covers for Cluster and Harmonia, will be exhibited in museum and gallery spaces as well. The Moebius Strips will also be documented with a limited-edition album release and exhibit program.
How do you Strip?
A Tim tutorial:
You will be given a variety of segments that I have started, generally about 3-8 minutes in length. These segments consist of interlocking, layered loops/strips - some are quite complex, while others are very ‘stripped down’, allowing for a wide scope of approaches and interactions. I will ask you to compose to a segment of your choice, which will then be placed in the ‘composition’ and will play in synch with Moebi’s individual layers, all on separate audio channels. Visitors to the exhibition are thus able to explore the original sounds, and fundamentally alter the compositions they perceive in the way they move through the space. There will be approximately 10-12 segments, about an hour total, which will loop continuously in the installation during exhibition hours.
You can incorporate whatever instrument or sounds you choose. These can be acoustic or electronic instruments, samples, field recordings, percussion, you name it. You can make just one layer/track or more. You will be provided with a basic mix of each segment in progress, as well as the individual stems that make up the segment. You can simply assemble/record your part(s) over the mix, or work with the individual stems if you would like to get more ‘micro’.
This is necessarily a bit different than a ‘remix.’ You can manipulate the stems if you wish, although we ask that you leave the basic loops as they are, which reflect the unique patterns that Moebi concocted. If a particular stem within your segment is disruptive or counterproductive to you, you have the total freedom to remove it, or arrange it in a different sequence to fit your interaction. If you‘re drawn to just one stem to interact with, feel free.
Your parts can be as simple or complex as you wish. For example, you can simply improvise over the segment, or make several passes and send us all. You can make evolving interlocking patterns over Moebi’s patterns, or longer, freer musical gestures. Moebi was a champion of inspired trial and error – he loved the accidental, he loved to have fun.
You are encouraged to do the same!
