A project by the Municipal Department of Arts and Culture of the City of Munich / 'Freie Kunst im öffentlichen Raum' in cooperation with the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation / Radio Play and Media Art Dept.

About

With Memory Loops, Munich is creating a virtual memorial for the victims of National Socialism. Michaela Melián’s audio work of art comprises 300 German and 175 English audio tracks which can be found on a map drawn up by the artist and downloaded free of charge. Each track is a collage of voice(s) and music thematically tied to a place in the former 'Capital of the Movement'.

With her work Memory Loops, Michaela Melián has been awarded first prize in the art competition 'Victims of National Socialism: New Forms of Remembering and Remembrance' held by the Bavarian State Capital of Munich.

The project is being carried out in cooperation with the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation/ Radio play and Media Art Dept. Memory Loops is largely based on historical and recent material from victims of National Socialism and contemporary witnesses: witnesses of the discrimination, persecution and exclusion to which people in Munich were subjected under the NS regime.

The reports and interviews have been transcribed and recorded by actresses and actors, with children reading the historical documents. These recordings have been embedded in an original musical score.

Memory Loops Radio Play

This memory loop deals with the tales of two brothers. Their parents were involved in a Communist organisation; their mother was a Jew. Repression towards the family was just a question of time.Then they have to leave their apartments and live in filthy huts in Milbertshofen. A week earlier, they still had an apartment with wardrobe, carpets, curtains. I can still see the people arriving on open trucks, with mattresses, bundles, coats, sometimes with a fur collar, sometimes wearing jewelry. All that was taken from them...

The voice collage based on the brothers’ reports highlights important places and routes on the map of terror wrought by the National Socialists against Jews in Munich: the City Hall, Lindwurmstrasse, the area from Herzog-Max-Strasse to Herzog-Rudolf-Strasse, from Knorrstrasse to Berg am Laim, from the Wittelsbach Palais to the main railway station where trains departed for Theresienstadt. Since 1945, the brothers have been living in Munich again and right up to the present day are still active in propagating the politics of memory.

Michaela Melián, an artist and musician, lives in Munich and Hamburg. She is a professor for time-based media at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HfbK), Hamburg. She is a member of the band F.S.K. (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle).