Schrei 27

Description

Shrei 27

Piercing, guttural screams of pain, crescendos of raw human sound, visceral primeval calls and episodes of silence form the extended aria of pain that is SCHREI 27, a new film created by Diamanda Galás and Davide Pepe. Initially commissioned as a radio work in 1994 (and subsequently performed live), Schrei 27 presents the viewer with an unrelenting portrait of a body suffering torture within the restricted confines of a medical facility. Comprising several short chapters of a ‘confession’ induced by chemical and mechanical manipulation of the brain, administered by doctors, this original work features Diamanda Galás and Salvatore Bevilacqua as a person who is taken to a mental hospital after arrest for treason.

Galás selected Italian filmmaker Davide Pepe five years ago to collaborate on this project that would take her original compositions for Schrei 27 as the basis for a film combining powerful visuals with additional and updated vocal and sound recording and mixing. ‘Sound remains the crucial element; the film takes us inside Diamanda’s voice, releasing feelings and emotions that have resulted in the development of visuals,’ says Pepe. ‘We wanted to translate this vision of fear and monstrous anxiety in a place where the contained have no rights, and where there is no escape.’

Galás adds, ‘As the incarcerated know, there is no correct answer to any question asked by an interrogator. The object of this kind of torture is complete demoralisation – and the erasure of all that the captive has ever known – including the fact that he was ever a human being.’

Diamanda Galás: Artist Statement for Schrei 27

July 27, 2012

The piece Schrei 27 is a very violent piece psychologically. If a person is isolated too long from society with false promises of release which constantly are presented to demoralize her/him, a suicidal impulse starts and builds that becomes so strong that the day may be spent looking for ways to kill oneself, anything, a wire, string, anything.

But the torturers say and sincerely believe that suicide is a way of tormenting the AUTHORITIES by escaping a fate due the victim, and it is blasphemous to the government. It is heretical.

“A fate worse than Death” could be seen at the death camps in Greece for traitors to the state, in the camps of Dachau, which institutionalized prisoners before the institutionalization of the Jews, in Makronisos, and in EL NTAMPA (El DABA) , which was designed for the worst criminals. Never discussed are the horrific boat rides which took the prisoners from their homes to these islands of torture, wherein the prisoners are smashed together for hours with dysentery. The giant rodents are not discussed in the desert islands which used the hot Sun to torture during the day and the cold Moon at night.

It is much like the Mexican escapees into America who are put on death walks by Mal coyotes who have taken their money to take them to a better place but could care less what happens to them. No, a man who has not experienced this torture does NOT know what it is like. I write about these things because I have experienced torture of a different sort but close enough to know this subject. I could sign this statement in blood.

Yes, we who can speak must speak for those who have been so traumatized that even recalling an event of torture dissolves them into seizures, nightmares, vomiting, and a run of terror that can be so easily triggered that most no longer live on the same floors as the families to whom they return IF they return at all–because they are ruined mentally and physically. OF COURSE they get cancer OF COURSE they develop incurable diseases afterwards.

There IS NO SEPARATION OF THE MIND FROM THE BODY. WHY DO PEOPLE PERSIST IN BELIEVING SUCH NONSENSE. WHY DOES THE WORLD DEPEND FOR ITS SURVIVAL ON PAINKILLING MEDICATIONS. THEY ARE NOT JUST FOR THE BODY. HOW MUCH TRAUMATIC MEMORY CAN THE BRAIN CONTAIN WITHOUT EXPLODING.

And the poor go to jail for this. A travesty. A mockery of humanity.

There is a naive idea that making a film on this subject that is not a documentary is an ” artistic approximation” of a far worse pain. REALLY? WHO DARES TO WRITE THIS SAYS HE KNOWS THE HISTORY OF THE COMPOSER.

WHO WROTE THE WORK THE INITIAL PIECE. I will not speak for the life of the gentleman who held the camera, a person of unending empathy, whose life is filled with unending trauma. Because I have not written in a list of footnotes of my life, that is because it is no one’s business. If I am seen screaming back the questions of the interrogator into his face it is because there are no answers to his questions and he and I know this, and rage can only last so long until fainting or death comes. Extreme situations produce extreme physical manifestations: freezing, stammering, seizures, obsessive behavior rituals, creative rituals which, like the overall obsessive behavior, allow the prisoner to stay alive, even if it is a daily dialogue with a spider in the cell.

Shrei 27

A film collaboration by Davide Pepe and Diamanda Galás

Credits:

Based on Diamanda Galás’ radio and performance work, Schrei 27 and Schrei X

Filming and Editing: Davide Pepe

Composition of Schrei 27, Vocal and Film Performance, and Original Painted and Drawn Images: Diamanda Galás

Sound Engineering, Recording and Mixing: Blaise Dupuy

Additional Sound Design and Mixing: Dave Hunt

Actor: Salvatore Bevilacqua

Original Poster Photography and Special Photography for Film: Robert Knoke

Film Photography: Davide Pepe

Additional Non-Vocal Sound Effects: Diamanda Galás and Davide Pepe

NYC Photography of Galás: Jim Provenzano

Schrei 27 Film Producers: Intravenal Sound Operations and Davide Pepe

British Press Liaison for Schrei 27: Janette Scott, Arts PR

Project Coordinator and Initial Press Writing with Galás: Isabelle Deconinck

Medical Photography: Dr Stephen Beldner and Dr Neville Carmichael

Additional Medical Photography: Dr Giuseppe Gizzi, Dr Cinzia Monti, Dr Carlo Massini, Dr Katiuscia Sponsano and Dr Paolo Vitale

Additional Camera Operator/Assistant to Galás: Stephanie Loveless

Additional Camera Assistant: Reena Katz

Additional Photography: Eric Boudreau

Project Consultant and Coordination: Thomas Ward

Special thanks to: Edi Bianco, Ana Birra, Eric Boudreau, Isabelle Deconinck, CHROME DIGITAL, Amedeo Contarini, G.K. Galás, Miriam King, James Mackay, Barbara Maier, Mascia Marchi, Pietro Massini and Jeff Pollack

Originally commissioned by: New American Radio (Staten Island), and created with co-commissioning funds from the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), where the radio version was created with coordination by Linda Greenberg and Jed Wheeler

Schrei X Live was released along with the original radio work on Mute Records UK