Jonas Höschl

On the 7th of November 1962, the then Governing Mayor Willy Brandt ceremoniously laid the foundation stone for the first construction phase of the large housing estate „Berlin-Gropiusstadt“ in the presence of Walter Gropius. Almost 30 years later, the documentary „Gropiusstadt - Ist alles Kacke hier! (1990) by Eberhard Weißbart appeared, which deals with gang wars in the satellite town. At a similar time interval, the artist Jonas Höschl is now reacting to the documentary, using the Film as the basis for his work. In collaboration with the audio film author Petra Schielke and the narrator Christian Bergmann, he created a sound piece with the use of audio description. A sound framework freed from narration, consisting of descriptions of the protagonists and locations of the short film, which interrogates the visual material itself. The producer Philipp Dittmar (Red On) reacts to this with sound documents of the 1960s from Neukölln`s museum archive, which accompanied the building process and the inauguration of Gropiusstadt. The result is a melodious radio play between German officialese, the subcultural sounds of Berlin at the time of reunification and contemporary, experimental electronics.

https://www.hoelzldaniel.com/aushang

"It confronts the history and contemporary implications of Neukölln's Gropiusstadt, one of West Berlin's major urban development projects from the cold war era. Höschl's contribution is a counter-narratological soundstream consisting of two elements: audio descriptions created to represent the protagonists and locations of the documentary "Gropiusstadt - Ist alles Kacke hier!" (1990) by Eberhard Weißbarth, as well as materials retrieved from audio archives dating to the 1960s documenting the building process and the inauguration of Gropiusstadt.", Mohammad Salemy

"Time disappears and leaves behind memories - of people, moments, melodies. "Fade Away Medley" is what Jonas Höschl calls his work, which revels in the thoughts and feelings of a generation. Carried by the soundtrack of his youth, Jonas Höschl tells in the photo book of scenes of debauchery and rebellion, but also of pausing and looking up. The hedonistic urge for extravagance and exaggeration is palpable in the full-page photographs, which are juxtaposed and enter into dialogues of content and form in direct succession. The transfiguring view of days gone by is broken up by sobering images of conservative lifestyles and world views. The oppressive conformity goes hand in hand with the longing for dissolution of boundaries, which Jonas Höschl also embodies himself in his photographs. He confronts the dialectic of his pictorial milieus in order to overcome them.", Carina Essl (LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation)

A: Fade Away Medley 1 (11:09 min)
B: Fade Away Medley 2 (16:47 min)

LP Fade Away Medley
Artist: Jonas Höschl, Photography: Jonas Höschl,
Composer: Tydings McClary, Mastering: Emanuel Geller,
Presswerk: MATTER OF FACT,
Design: Michael Seibert (unfun)

The photo book Fade Away Medley can be ordered here.

"Europe is lost (...) leaves an oppressive feeling. One photo shows a man whose face is completely masked, another wears dark sunglasses and smokes.", from the article "Nie wieder!" by Amelie Völker in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 05, 2020