"Personally experienced catastrophes--since all experiences one has are personal including experiences of catastrophes in the surrounding environment. I certainly feel that the things I have experienced in my life have not been without effect. That is why for instance we are setting up the Free International University: really radical alternatives must be set up as a balance to the factors that produce catastrophes in the world. The last world war was one such example, and personal experience of aspects of that did in fact influence the conception of some objects.
But one has to constantly struggle against these traumatic conditions, and that's true of every individual, not just me. That is the essence of human nature. As Nietzsche said: "Man is an ill being." That's a definition of humanity. The human being is ill and can be ill. Because of his freedom the human being always trespasses into areas that threaten him or her.
Yes, personal experiences that have found expression in these objects--it would undoubtedly be a shame if such things had not found their way into my work. How could it be different? Art expresses the realm of experience and goes far beyond the comprehensibility of logical content. For art depends only on experience and experiences should of course aim at the objective elucidation of universal content of experience. But when you approach and tackle this objective universal content, mistakes occur during the struggle, not just in my case but quite generally. These have then to be redirected; they have to be caught. To this extent it is a permanent struggle and I believe that something of this struggle situation is contained in the objects." [4]BACK TO BIOGRAPHY BACK TO ACOUSTICS BACK TO MAIN MENU |