JOYFUL JOYCE

Multichannel installation - Salzburger Festspiele 2019

James Joyce suffered from astraphobia. This anguished fear of thunderstorms is said to have been caused by a governess who convinced him that they were signs of God’s wrath. Throughout his life, he tried to plan his travels only through thunderstorm-free zones. He ascribed the frequency of thunderstorms to radio waves.

In 1928 the author, whose revolutionary work Ulysses had appeared in 1922 but at the time was met with scandal and censorship, spent five weeks in Salzburg (from July 23rd to August 28th). Here he fell prey to one of his frequent and violent eye infections, “due to the devastating effect of the climate”. While he waited for an improvement in his condition in a dark hotel room, his work on Finnegan’s Wake stalled. On August 4th, lightning caused a one-hour blackout throughout the city.

Thunder and lightning occur frequently in Joyce’s works, often in conjunction with death and the colour black. In Finnegan’s Wake, there are ten instances of thunder. These thunderclaps consist of word combinations of 100, and in one case 101, characters.
 

The installation was accessible at the Salzburger Festspielen:
Thu August 8 - Wed August 28, 2019

Location: Baroque Museum in the Mirabell Gardens, Salzburg



Concept: Ruth Beckermann
Composition: Anja Plaschg
Voices: H.K. Gruber, Anja Plaschg
Image composition: Klaus Pamminger
Sound Design: Georg Misch
Camera: Jörg Burger, Klaus Pamminger, Margot Scherl
Sound: Georg Misch
Sound Mixing: Alexander Koller
Projection: Lichttapete: Neel Bellerby, Tim Schmelzer
Production Manager: Rebecca Hirneise
Font design: Walli Jungwirth


Other contributors:
Speakers: Danny Cullen, Naomi Cullen, Andy Dune, Donal Donnelly, Lisa Fallon, Des Gunning, Ann Honan, Kate Lyne, Peter O’Shea
Cuckoo Clock: Otto Lechner
Neon lettering: Miroslav Dimitrov
Technical assistance: Walter Studener, Marc Wollner
Expert advice: Zürcher James Joyce Stiftung: Fritz Senn, Ursula Zeller
Productions assistant: Florian Kecht
Photos installation: Monika Rittershaus



Thanks to

Philipp Diettrich
Una Ni Dhonghaile
Familie Donnelly
Tina Handl
Klemens Hufnagl
Shirin Hooshmandi
Alois Kinast
Reinhard Mayr
Andreas Müller
Dieter Pichler
Meinhard Rauchensteiner
Barbara Reumüller
Rayna Teneva
Andreas Weigel


© Ruth Beckermann Filmproduktion