For many years, my music has been driven by the question of how  sound can create identity, but also how to destabilise it. I am particularly interested in moments when (binary) distinctions dissolve: between acoustic and electronic, original and copy, human  and machine. In this sense, I see venus_5 as an early exploration  of what I would today call nonbinary composing.

The starting point of the piece is the sound of the piano. However,  it does not appear as a single instrumental sound, but in several  distinct forms: as a grand piano on stage, as amplified sound, as  an electronically transformed version, as a recording, or as a synthetic instrument. None of these variants is the “true” sound of  the piano. Rather, they coexist and comment on one another.

In its diversity, this constellation reminds me of Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto. Haraway describes the cyborg as a being  that transcends fixed boundaries and binary categories. Similarly,  I understand the electronics in venus_5 not as a mere extension of  the instrument, but as an independent sonic actor. The piece does  not attempt to merge different identities. Rather, it makes them  audible simultaneously.

This gives rise to a sound that conceives of difference not as  a problem, but as a productive reality. venus_5 sees itself as a plea  for a musical way of thinking in which diversity does not need to  be integrated or resolved, but is allowed to persist precisely in its  contradictions.

Luxa M. Schüttler