A scream cuts through the night. It also cuts the curtain between nature and culture. But it’s not the monster that screams–it’s the horrified creators. “I have just found a body.”
200 years ago Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein“ was published – perhaps the first modern myth. Ever since, the story of Victor F. and his monster has haunted our imagination and informed discussions about artificial life and the relationships of nature, technology, and society. A key moment in the story describes the monster hiding in a small dark room, where it listens to voices and sounds, and observes human behaviour. The monster is recording.

Welcome to Studio Frankenstein.

Within a course at the Department of Site-Specific Art students have produced a radio show, patched together like the monster itself. The individual sound pieces approach contemporary themes and questions of ecology, gender, or identity. Like chapters of a monstrous novel, the pieces vary in content, style and narrative perspective. The experiment is framed by an expedition into the perpetual ice of Vienna’s 3rd district. While Shelley’s novel starts and ends in the Arctic, Studio Frankenstein has set up its base-camp in an industrial cold storage facility near Vienna’s former slaughter houses.

A project from students of the University of Applied Arts Vienna:

Rosie Benn, Jasjote Grewal, Lukas Gritzner, Nataly Gurova, Daniel Hüttler, Katerina Kotsova, Monica LoCascio, Erik Melstrom, Benny Nelson, Pia Plankensteiner, Irene Reichart, Raphael Reichl, Andrea Resner, Mina Mocosa Tarilonte.

Thanks to Philip Haupt, Rainer Schreckenthaler / AGRO Merchants Vienna.
Concept and production in the framework of a course by Ralo Mayer at the Department of Site-Specific Art.

Image credits: Andrea Resner, Raphael Reichl