Wolf Vostell
Buch mit elektron­ischer Tasse

The editioned object Buch mit elektronischer Tasse (Book with electronic cup) contains a sound-sensitive cup with plug, a signed copy of the artist’s book Wolf Vostell: dé-coll/agen 1954-1969 with a text by Sidney Simon and a Rhenish brown bread underneath the book. The enamel cup, signed and numbered on the underside, has built-in electronics with a photocell and loudspeaker (by Peter Saage) and produces an electronic chirping sound as soon as it is plugged in. It is not equipped with a switch. To turn it off, you have to cover it. The wooden box is closed with a sliding plexiglass panel, printed with the details of the edition and the names of the components: documentation 1954-69 & die geräuschempfindliche tasse & rheinisches schwarzbrot. As the components of the edition can be seen through the Plexiglas, the wooden box is also suitable for presenting the book with the electronic cup. The artist’s book Wolf Vostell: dé-coll/agen 1954-1969, published in Berlin in 1969 and self-published by Galerie Block, documents early posters, blurred images, objects, happening scores, electronic blurred images and objects by the artist in numerous b/w illustrations. The text “Wolf Vostell’s Action Imagery” by Sidney Simon had previously appeared in the magazine Art International in November 1968.
In the exhibition series Akustische Räume (Acoustic Spaces) at Galerie Block in 1970, in which Konrad Schnitzler, H.J. Dietrich, Nam June Paik and Mauricio Kagel, among others, developed electronic, technical or acoustic spaces for the gallery space, Vostell had set up what the invitation card called an “electronic-psychological space” under the title Induktion. Visitors were able to search for magnetic fields installed on the floor with an induction board prepared with small loudspeakers and objects in their hands. On contact with such a field, the loudspeakers on the induction board emitted electronic noises. Vostell is not interested in composed or specific sound sequences, but rather in “making people aware of the inherent acoustics, the phenomenal nature of the acoustics […] of the object”¹.
Text: Birgit Eusterschulte

¹ Wolf Vostell. 4 elektronische Environments und 1 Happening. Pro musica nova, Exhib. cat., Bremen 1974, p. 19.