Software (tape)

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Record cover for SOFTWARE-Music (Mergener & Weisser) appeared on the Innovative Communication label in 1985

Software is an intermedia art project that links music with images and poetry. The vision for “software” (the language of tomorrow) is based on the science fiction novel Syn-Code-7 and the long-term project “ComputerKultur” by the artist Michael Weisser . This novel about a biotechnologically shaped utopia describes visionary dome projections that combine electronic music with abstract images and a new kind of high-tech poetry to create a total work of art.

history

Musically, the idea was implemented by the duo Peter Mergener (* 1951) and Michael Weisser (* 1948), who under Mergener & Weisser began in 1982 to compose and perform exclusively electronic music . 1983-85 three music albums were created, which were released as LPs on the label IC - Innovative Communication .

With the advent of the digital CD, the duo Mergener & Weisser merged into the Software formation in 1984 and started with LP / CD chip mediation .

All of the formation's albums were released under the label IC / Innovative Communication, which was founded in 1978 by the electronic musician Klaus Schulze and on which numerous other musicians, including the NDW group Ideal , were represented from 1980 .

Between 1990 and 1992 Weisser produced four albums under the name SOFTWARE with different line-ups: Fragrance with Klaus Schulze (* 1947) and Georg Stettner (* 1970) and Modesty-Blaze I. and II. As well as Cave with Billy Byte (alias Stephan Töteberg).

In 1999 the software project was ended. Peter Mergener continues to compose and play electronic music, while Michael Weisser works as an artist with new, digital media in which software compositions are incorporated via QR codes.

Artwork - computer art

The music formation software conceptually dealt with the emerging topic of "computer culture". The software cover and the artwork of all sound carriers (LP, MC, CD) showed graphics by computer artists such as MAPART ( Heinz-Otto Peitgen ), Herbert W. Franke , Jürgen Brickmann , Able Image Research, Yoichiro Kawaguchi , Nelson L. Max, David Sherwin , Andy Kopra, Mental Images .

With this concept, Software presented itself with a focus on art exhibitions such as the IBM research project "Gesang der Electronen" (1985), "artware" (together with Klaus Geldmacher ) in 1987, "Digital Art" (Bayreuth Town Hall) in 1988 and with the two projections in Planetarium Bochum (1988) and in the Allsky des Planetarium in Stuttgart (1989).

In the Fantastic Library of Suhrkamp Verlag, the science fiction novel “Dea-Alba” (Herbert W. Franke and Michael Weisser) was published as the first media hybrid, a paperback with a music cassette ( computer music from software (Mergener & Weisser)).

Record cover of the music production SOFTWARE as hardware by SOFTWARE (nUmixxx / Pauli & Weisser), released on the label IC - Innovative Communication 1995, Limited Edition with chip from NASA

Discography (complete)

The formation: Mergener & Weisser

  • 1983: Beam Scape (Mergener & Weisser)
  • 1984: Phancyful Fire (Mergener & Weisser)
  • 1985: Night-Light (Mergener & Weisser)

Mergener & Weisser, Weisser and others as software

  • 1985: Chip Meditation I
  • 1985: Electronic Universe I
  • 1987: Past-Present-Future I
  • 1987: Past-Present-Future II
  • 1987: Syn Code
  • 1988: Digital Dance
  • 1988: Electronic Universe II
  • 1988: Software Visions
  • 1988: Electronic Universe II
  • 1988: Dea Alba (as cassette book with Suhrkamp)
  • 1990: Chip Meditation II
  • 1989: Visions, 3rd Dimension Live
  • 1990: Ocean
  • 1990: Fragrance (Stettner & Schulze & Weisser)
  • 1991: Modesty-Blaze I (Toeteberg & Weisser)
  • 1992: Modesty-Blaze II (Toeteberg & Weisser)
  • 1992: Software Visions
  • 1993: Space Design
  • 1993: Cave (Toeteberg & Weisser)
  • 1994: Ten Years - Best of Software
  • 1994: Brain-Food-Music
  • 1995: Heaven to Hell
  • 1995: Software as Hardware (nUmixxx / Pauli & Weisser)
  • 1997: Sky-Dive
  • 1998: Fire-Works
  • 1999: Mystic Millennium I (software and others)
  • 1999: Mystic Millennium II (software and others)
  • 2007: Spring Visions (Sampler Edition)
  • 2008: Sun Storm (Sampler Edition)
  • 2017: Electronic Music Edition

as well as single tracks on international compilations

Collection of software albums

  • ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Archive ComputerKultur Collection Weisser)
  • Kunsthalle Bremen (Archive ComputerKultur Collection Weisser)

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literature

  • The history of the music label IC / Innovative Communication . In: Herbert W. Franke, Michael Weisser: Dea-Alba - A fantastic sounding story with computer music from software . First edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt 1988 (Fantastic Library). New edition expanded to include the history of the IC / Innovative Communication label and the SOFTWARE music formation, published as a QR hybrid book by Die | QR | Edition, Murnau am Staffelsee 2017, pp. 117–149.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fantastic Library Suhrkamp , Volume 67, 1982
  2. ↑ The SOFTWARE story . Interview of the music critic Thomas Hammerl with Michael Weisser. WhitePaperCollection, Edit 06, 2016 (Kindle Edition)
  3. ↑ Ingo Engelhardt: The white stone . In: New Mag , May 1991, pp. 73/74. State Archives Bremen (Sign. StAB 7, 278 Weisser, Michael)
  4. ^ Rolf Sachsse: Sound currents . In: QR-Lab.de (PDF) 1990
  5. ^ Herbert W. Franke: SOFTWARE - The other music . In: Mark Sakautzky (Ed.): TenYears SOFTWARE-Music . (1984-1994). State Archives Bremen (Sign. StAB 7, 278 Weisser, Michael)
  6. ↑ The software, Mergener & Weisser, Peter Mergener story. In: German Rock (Rocklexikon)
  7. ↑ MusIC for the eyes of your mind - complete catalog. IC / DigItMusic, Bremen / Hamburg 1998, pp. 14–15, 22, 48
  8. ↑ Here and now and everywhere - Computer & Culture . In: PC-Woche , 10/1989. State Archives Bremen (Sign. StAB 7, 278 Weisser, Michael)
  9. ↑ in: rice.de