The Voice Imitator

Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard is the inspiration for The Voice Imitator, a series of artworks and piano compositions based on Bernhard’s stories by composer Yotam Haber and artist Anna Schuleit.

In one of their initial encounters, Haber and Schuleit discovered that they shared a fascination with Bernhard, especially his collection of 104 short stories, Der Stimmenimitator.

In this collaboration, Schuleit firstly records readings of each story, which forms the basis of Haber’s 104 compositions. Each work Haber composes is no shorter or longer than Schuleit’s readings of Bernhard’s story. Each story then makes its way back to the artist, and Schuleit creates a painting: a visual response to Haber’s music, based on the quality and rhythm of speech. In the paintings Schuleit reveals little of the actual human figures that Bernhard describes in each story, except for certain details of limbs and gesture, which appear and disappear within a fragmented, deconstructed pictorial space.

Intended as a series, the paintings will be exhibited alongside, and in dialogue with, Haber’s compositions in a gallery performance in New York. Audiences will be invited to view the actual paintings hung in the space, encircling the pianist. Finally the project will be published in book-form, in which the handwritten score (itself a visual artifact) of each composition is printed side-by-side with each painting.

Follow the progress of The Voice Imitator on voiceimitator.wordpress.com