Babylonische Schleife (Babylonian Loop) is a composition for spaces without a centre, using music as a means to sound out the tension between local and global communication. Point of origin and theme of the composition are the Berlin television tower as an “outstanding” feature in the city’s architecture and the circular space of its revolving restaurant with its particular performance challenges.
The musicians are positioned in a long loop along the inner passage, each of them being exposed in close proximity to the slowly passing spectators. The concert situation is dissolved into a continuum of subjective scenes. There is no centre but all musicians follow a score, whereby the individual parts are constantly held in the tension between local and global context.
This performance situation reminds us of the myth of Babel which combines a longing for an architectonic centre of society and a deprivation of a common basis for communication. The community is split up into individuals and thus also the individuals disintegrate. These dissonances are already inherent in the television tower with its revolving space high above the city and engendered in any music to be performed there, if one regards the space itself as a musical element.
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Moritz Gagern 