Heidi Grundmann, curator, art critic and founder of the ORF Kunstradio, is celebrating her 70th birthday these days, and Kunstradio congratulates with a radio work by Lisl Ujvary.

At the Ars Electronica festival 2007 a video portrait of Heidi Grundmann. created by artist Roberto Paci Daló, was presented. The portrait is part of the series IMA Fiction and its presentation was hosted by the IMA Salon, an event by Elisabeth Schimana. Further, artists contributed audio homages to Grundmann, amongst them is also the author and radio artist Lisl Ujvary. She adapted a part of a Kunstradio production from 1996, which featured Grundmann’s voice, “Language of Genes”:

„language of genes“ transcribes a virus-genome into music, transforms genetic sequences of bacteria, chickens, insects and humans (we are all on big family) into sequences of electronic music. minimalist repetitions and displacements of analogue sound patterns reflect life, randomisations create a quasi-evolution, structural changes point at faulty copy processes. heidi grundmann is part of this family – she contributed to this producion in thoughts, ideas and spoken words. “language of genes – homage à heidi grundmann” is a reworked fragment of this production. may her genes experience many, faultless copy processes!”

Information on the 1996 version of „Language of Genes“, which was also published on CD.:

Link:
"body music 3: die sprache der gene" (Kunstradio 12.09.1996)