GESCHICHTENSAMMELSTELLE 16 synoptic Carinthian mini-dialogues Copy

by Friedemann Arbel Derschmidt and Alaa Alkurdi

9. May bis 26. October 2025

 

We employed a unique filming technique: using the Interotron, the participants were able to look directly into each other’s eyes—unlike in a Zoom meeting or video call. As a result, the individuals on screen appear to make direct eye contact with viewers from anywhere in the room, creating a “Mona Lisa effect.”

32 audio tracks in an extended video format (3840×1080) were split across two HD projectors via the NVIDIA graphics card. The audio tracks were mapped to 18 ring speakers and spatially distributed—dynamically—throughout the room using Reaper software and the 5’’ IKO system. Additionally, two audio channels (two conversation participants) were routed via a digital-to-analog converter to mono analog outputs and sent to 16 headphones.

This way, you can hear all the voices in the room (dialogues from one wall to the other) OR listen to each conversation individually.

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16 synoptic Carinthian mini-dialogues

Not blood and soil nourish our identity constructions, but the stories we tell one another. Conflicts—and even wars—have often been fought not so much over physical resources as collective narratives. Victory belongs to the side whose narrative ultimately prevails and silences the others. When such a process is “successful,” everyone ends up poorer. We lose nuance and subtlety, and what remains is a simplistic caricature of ourselves. The deep human need for individuality and uniqueness remains unmet, and all involved become victims of a broader cultural desolation.
The British neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks wrote: ‘Each person is a unique narrative, which is continually and unconsciously being constructed through their perceptions, feelings, thoughts, actions— and not least, through their spoken words, their articulated story. Biologically and physiologically, we are
not so different from one another; historically, as lived narratives, we are each of us unique.’

With this understanding, the Geschichtensammelstelle (Story Collection Center) project team set
out in search of layered and complex narratives from Carinthia—stories that could challenge the dichotomies still marked by deep wounds in this region. The result is a compilation of lived and intergenerational narratives that may lead to unexpected reinterpretations.
In sixteen half-hour dialogues, nine women and seven men reflect on their relationship with Carinthia and the impact of the region’s recent history on their personal lives. Half of these conversations are intergenerational or intra-familial: for instance, a mother speaks with her son, a daughter with her father, a mother with her daughter, a son with his father, or a wife with her wife. Each participant thus speaks once within their family system and once with someone outside of it. The result is a ‘narrative circle,’ visually represented on the information screen in front of the Center Stage room. Usage Information: We present the sixteen Carinthian mini-dialogues in a synoptical way.

You can follow the individual conversations in two ways: focusing on one of the subtitle lines and reading it continuously or using one of the headphones provided. Each headphone allows you to follow one of the dialogues and to identify the speakers in the video as they speak.

 

 

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