Sound artists Kjersti G. Andvig and Ioana Mandrescu came to be in residence at C-TAKT in March 2023. They were based in the church of Boseind, which they had completely taken over with speakers to work on their project ‘Hacking Wagner’.

‘Hacking Wagner’ is a multi-channel sound installation that aims to recreate Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’ using pre-recorded samples of human speech. The starting point is the voice of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, but the full cast consists of 30 different people. Assange’s sampled voice forms the entire orchestra and one of the seven main characters. The rest of the cast, soloists and choirs, are replaced by other famous people relevant to the story.

During their residency, they gave a sneak preview of this special project. At Studio Dommelhof, they came to talk about Wagner, about the characters and about the samples they use.