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In October 2019 I listened to animals imitating humans, 2019
Martin Roth
Sound and Sounddesign: Paul Remund

Bildunterschrift

Building rubble and fragments of sculpture cover the floor in Martin Roth’s sound and space installation. A posthuman landscape of ruin – yet solitary pioneer plants are reclaiming the signs of humankind’s exploitation and destructive power. They have survived, as have the birds whose chirping we can hear. They imitate the sounds of civilisa-tion such as ringing tones, sirens, car noise – a real phenomenon used by Roth to introduce the absent human being, the Anthropocene, as a trace into the dystopian scenery. In contrast to the plants’ hopeful will to live, however, their calls seem like a swan song to a civilisation that has gone off course. Like many of the constructed, ephemeral landscapes in Roth’s work, this installation creates a tension between the artificial and the human, between nature and the domesticated. It allows us to look from the future into a past that is itself still future.

Loaned by Estate Roth
With thanks to Margret and Hans Roth, Margareta Sandhofer, Manuela Schlossinger, Alexander Kleinlechner and Anita Fuchs (plants).