WHEN ALL THE PEOPLE
Sound installation by Augst and Friedmann - 500 years after the Peasants' War

When the projections early Wednesday morning. When talk of the turning point. When Thomas Müntzer 500 years ago the paradise on earth. When universal human rights no longer. When the best head to the bailiff. When the longing for nationalism and autocracy. When on the eve of the Peasants' War.

 

May 9, 2025
7 PM Introduction
8 PM Premiere
May 10-11, 2025 Installation open during the opening hours (12 – 6 PM)

Oliver Augst: idea, conception, composition, realization
Reto Friedmann: idea, conception, dramaturgy, text
Fred Marty: double bass
Oliver Augst, Nicole Horny, Brezel Göring, Pascale Schiller: voice
 

The sound installation takes up the concept of universalism and uses it to question today's time of upheaval. The equality of all people was first formulated by ordinary people on the eve of the Peasants' War. Today, universalist achievements such as human rights are once again under pressure.
Augst and Friedmann produce and collect pieces of a puzzle that include finds from the eve of the Peasants' War and from contemporary narratives and condense them into a linguistic and musical kaleidoscope. They react to the social overheating with slowing down, pauses and silence. Creating a space for reflection.

WHEN ALL THE PEOPLE is a self-generating radio play. It is based on a voice and sound archive of recorded and systematised audio samples. Other sound components are original sounds, field recordings and sounds generated by electronic sound generators. Once started, the sound installation continues indefinitely. The sound and voice components are essentially placed in ever new relations, overwritings or even cancellations via compositional exclusion criteria, proportional definitions, content grouping, fixed concatenations and aleatoric processes.
In order to grasp the dimension of the work, a listening time of at least 50 minutes is recommended, as well as repeated ‘immersion’ in the sound installation.

‘It is always the viewers who make the pictures’ (Marcel Duchamp)

Using the song ‘Gott, heilger Schöpfer aller Stern’ by Thomas Müntzer from 1523, which can still be found in the Protestant hymnal today, as well as the ‘Püntisch Liedlein’ (Bündisches Lied) by Conz Annahans, which is the only major authentic poem by the insurgents of 1525 to have survived, in a setting by Oliver Augst.  The song states that the peasants had ‘invented a meaning’, i.e. they had a realisation. Looking back, it can be said that their demands anticipated the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in a very visionary way, especially concerning the principle of equality.

Supported by: Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Kulturamt der Stadt Frankfurt, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, Kultursommer Rheinland-Pfalz der Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz für Kultur, Ernst-Bloch-Zentrum Ludwigshafen, Kanton Schaffhausen CH, Kulturstiftung des Kantons Thurgau CH.

With the kind support of Spinnkultur e.V A production by Augst und Friedmann.
In co-operation with basis e.V. Frankfurt.

The poetry book ‘Wenn alle Menschen’ by Reto Friedmann and Michael Wagener (gutleut verlag, Reihe Licht) will be published to accompany the premiere.

Follow up performances:

6.6.2025, 9 PM
Neunkirch Cultural Evening, Budigg, Neunkirch/CH

12.6. - 1.8.2025
Ernst Bloch Centre, Ludwigshafen

27.6. - 21.9.2025
Eberbach Monastery, Eltville

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Biographies:

Oliver Augst
Music, radio play and stage productions, variable ensembles and collaborations, international concert activities. ‘Frankfurt's central artist in the experimental border area of music, radio play, literature and theatre.’ (M. Pees, Berliner Festspiele). ‘He is a musician that is crossing real boundaries. If you haven't heard of him, it's because he's crossed a boundary that matters.’ (Downtown NYC)

Reto Friedmann
Radio artist and performer, Master of Arts in Religious Education, DAS Theology of Spirituality, religious education teacher RPI, formerly. Managing Director of the association radio school Klipp & Klang Radiokurse. Since 1998 independent radio play productions for public radio stations such as SRF2, Ö1, Deutschlandfunk, etc. and radio performances at renowned festivals and venues, several radio play awards. From 2023 guest professor (as Blablabor together with A. Schmucki) at the University of Music and Performing Arts, HfMDK, in Frankfurt/M.

Brezel Göring
Musician, producer and author.
He has released numerous albums with Stereo Total and played live throughout Europe, North and South America, Japan, China and Russia.
Göring also releases solo records and music for video games, films and theatre plays (including for the Theater Hebbel am Ufer, the Volksbühne Berlin and the Kölner Philharmonie). He also runs the label ‘Verboten in Deutschland’ and scores silent films. In 2012, his book Unbehagen in der Mittelstufe with ‘Schülertheaterstücke’ was published by Schmitz Verlag.

Nicole Horny
Actress, trained at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar Vienna (AT), the Oxford School of Drama (GB) and the European Masterclass for Directing and Acting GITIS (DE/ RU). Following collaborations with Heiner Müller, Ferruccio Soleri, Karl Paryla, Eimuntas Nekrosius and others, Nicole Horny works as an actress/performer in classical theatre as well as at independent production venues for contemporary performing arts, is an established speaker for radio plays, features and dubbing, stage designer, radio play author and teaches as MA Speech Science/ Phonetics at the Philipps University of Marburg, among others.

Pascale Schiller
Actress, born in France
1992 - 1998 Studied Theatre Studies and Literature Paris X - Nanterre
2007 Best Actress Festival Internacional de Ciné de Las Palmas for ‘The Naughty Ones’
Films (selection):
Siblings, D / A 2016, Drama (110 min.)
This Night, P / D / F 2008 (Nuit de chien), literary adaptation (117 min.)
Die Unerzogenen, D 2007, drama (90 min.)
Collaboration with Werner Schroeter and Claude Berri