Based in Berlin since 2002, Hajnal Németh works at the intersection of visual art and music. Her interdisciplinary works include performances, moving image formats, audio and space installations. Her works are created in different variations, which she emphasises in the titles. She usually makes several “versions” of each, and the numbered works (version 1, 2, 3) are based on the same theme, structure and form. Her works are based on musical scores, song lyrics, poems or fragments of prose, quotations from various sources and the artist’s own texts. The artist questions the gesture of the quotation by rewriting the quoted text and developing a quasi-corrected, but in any case arbitrarily modified version with new/other meanings. Imagine War – Version 3 (Band Version) takes the form of a 30-minute concert performed by a band in a temporary formation. The composition consists of 10 well-known songs. The musical interpretation leaves the songs recognisable, but the lyrics are edited transcriptions; some of the words replaced completely change the content. Thus the “anthem of hope and peace” is transformed into a “song of war”, the mirror of the legendary Velvet Underground song into a terror, the Beatles’ Sun into a weapon.
Kriszta Dékei