»… I needed to isolate very early and live my life in loneliness. (…) I couldn't even ask the people: Please, speak loud, shout, because I'm deaf!«* 

Beethoven's letter, asking his friend to »describe my disease so that the world may reconcile with me, at least after my death« sums up the tragedy and torments of his life perfectly. Today, he'd probably send a text. Having the opportunity to talk to people without being around them in person, he would have been texting everybody. But – would he have liked it?

2020 taught us an important lesson: being human means being social. Having our phones to talk to each other, using cameras and computer screens to see one's faces, listening to recordings via headphones and watching concerts via screens is all good, and it helped us through the lockdown, but – it's not enough!

We all felt it. We all missed it. That moment of transcendence, which made the great Sergiu Celibidache detest recordings. That spark that Marko Letonja feels when performing for a live audience. Being a human means needing another human to feel like a person. To live fully. 

On the other hand, technology opens up the door to music and art in a way it has never been opened before. It democratizes them; it makes them available not just to consume, but to create! That's what Anders Lind explores and thematizes with his Mobile Phones Orchestra project, turning the listeners into performers.

What would Beethoven, an ardent believer in democracy say about that? What would appear in our text bubble? Thumbs up? OMG?

Festival Maribor offers you a chance to participate in the experiment, and get the experience enabling you to make an educated guess. The answer, however, will be given to us by the future.

 

*letter to Franz Gerhard Wegeler, 1801