TIMELESS MOVEMENT IN SOCKS / MACHT EUCH AUF DIE SOCKEN

Research-based sound installation / Performatively activated installation / Radio piece / Live staged reading
Shortwave receivers, Threads, Motors, Violin, Fiddle, Autoharp, broken Bass drum, broken Violin, Cardboard, Video, Piezo microphones, Field recordings, Electronics

CLICK: Audio, Radio piece (Full version)
CLICK: Video, Documentation


ISCP
New York City, USA




TIMELESS MOVEMENT IN SOCKS / MACHT EUCH AUF DIE SOCKEN delves into the experiences of Saxon immigrants in the early 20th century in the USA. In collaboration with fiddle player Anna Roberts-Gevalt (US) and violinist Izabela Kałduńska (PL/D), the project merges electroacoustic music and artistic-historical research.

The focus is on migration processes, cultural preservation, and transformation. Before World War II, the Erzgebirge region in Saxony was a center for global sock production, and Saxon craftsmen migrated to the USA in the 1920s. Chapters such as "Machine / Work / Repetition" and "Assimilation / Frozen Culture / Loss" explore the facets of the stories and unfold with endurance. The interplay of traditional music and experimental object sounds, coupled with the personal memories of people from the Erzgebirge, Germany, and Pennsylvania, USA, enhances the emotional impact.


The three-hour performance (at FourOneOne, Space for Performance, New York, and Seanaps Festival @ Techne Sphere, Leipzig) activates self-developed thread instruments and sculptures in the installation with field recordings, object sounds, shortwave radio, and live violin interpretations of immigration songs.


SEANAPS FESTIVAL
Leipzig, Germany








WAXMOOD STUDIO
Leipzig, Germany

The artistic research for MACHT EUCH AUF DIE SOCKEN / TIMELESS MOVEMENT IN SOCKS was supported by a research residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Project (ISCP) in New York City, funded by the Kunstfonds Foundation and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony. The composition of the radio piece was made possible by funding from the Music Fund and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.


CREDITS:

Voice: Anna Clementi
Violin / Objects: Izabela Kałduńska
Fiddle: Anna Roberts-Gevalt
Autoharp / Voice: Keith Brintzenhoff
Composition / Text / Objects / Electronics / Voice: Anna Schimkat
Proofreading: Marcel Raabe
Translation: Janice Spry
Recording: André Rauch, Waxmood Studio
Mastering: Giuseppe Ileasi


SOURCES:

Thomas Lindner, Lindner Socks, Hohenstein-Ernstthal, Since 1890. Founded by his grandparents, the company was collectivized in the 70s/80s. His parents reprivatized it in 1990. Lindner Socks is one of the few Saxon companies still family-owned and producing.

Uwe Lindner, 1st Chairman of the Thalheim Local History Association. He worked as a programmer at the ESDA stocking combine.

Patrick Donmoyer, Kutztown. Historian. Director of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Center at Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.

Keith Brintzenhoff, Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Folk musician dedicated to the heritage of the Pennsylvania Dutch. He performs in dialect and with old instruments.

Letters from OTTO Quellmalz auf Oberfrohna, immigrated to America in 1866. Discovered in the archive of the German Emigrant Letters: Research Library Gotha of the University of Erfurt, German America Letter Collection.

First German Stocking Museum in Gelenau and Dr. O. Tautenhahn, Local Historian of Gelenau.

"Burning Beethoven. The Eradication of German Culture in The United States During World War 1" by Erik Kirschbaum.

Alexa Freyman is a hobby historian from Reading and runs a blog: Berks Nostalgia, where she collects stories "from the good old days".

Eddie Bitterlich, granddaughter of Jay Bitterlich. Her family emigrated from Thalheim in 1924. Lives in Warminster, Pennsylvania.

Rita Puls. Her family came from the Erzgebirge / GDR to Philadelphia in 1955. Lives with her husband Wolfgang in Warminster and is a VE Club member.

Karoline Loth, founding member of Resonanzraum Erzgebirge e.V. Lives with her family in Thalheim.

Philipp Zipfel from: Soxn. Skate socks from Leipzig.

Ina Maria Greverus, a German folklorist. In 1974, she founded the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at the University of Frankfurt am Main and became its first professor. Her book "In Search of Home" from 1979 is quoted.


FURTHER SOURCES:

Brochure: "30 Years VEB Gelkida Gelenau", Publisher: Combine Operation in the VEB Stocking Combine ESDA Thalheim, 1983.

Book: "History of the Stocking Industry in Thalheim / Erzgebirge", Authors' Collective of the GFTE, Publisher: Non-Profit Association Thalheim/Erzgebirge, 2002.

Article: "Berkshire Knitting Mills 1924: The Nazis of Reading, PA, in 3D." by Ian Ference and Stacey Doyle Ference on brooklynstereography.com.

Article: "Der Hans fängt wieder an." from "Der Spiegel", Issue 10, 1954.

Contribution on the website: "Our Heritage, the Lindner Socks Story Australia" on lindnersocks.com.au.

Radio broadcast: "Boys - always speak German nicely", Deutschlandfunkkultur, from the archives on deutschlandfunkkultur.de/auswanderer-100.