Theory likes to hold on to things. If it tends to appear abstract, detached from bodies and worldly affairs, its flight from the mess and muck of the everyday seems to be part of a desire for concepts that outlast the ever-changing, ever-dying forms of the world around us. In contrast, the art of music has often been framed as anti-theory, a transitory play with “sensations without concepts” that, according to Immanuel Kant, “leaves us with nothing to meditate about”.

But what happens if we do theory through music? What if we allow theory to resonate with affects and sensations? Perhaps we will, once again, be able to focus less on products and more on processes, embracing both memory and forgetting as part of a new (conceptual) mnemonic realism.

In their musical work, the musician, choreographer and philosopher Franziska Aigner (FRANKIE) and the composer, producer, instrumentalist, vocalist and performer Alexandra Gruebler (Baal & Mortimer) have both explored questions of memory, loss and mourning. For our contribution to this year’s Project Space Festival, they will perform some of their recent works and engage in a conversation about music, theory and how to overcome a looming sense of normative purity.

With the generous support of