Anyone can sing (singen kann jeder) centers on the human voice and singing. The multichannel audio and video piece is based on recordings from various opera houses and auditoriums as well as archival material from these institutions. Kristof Georgen does not present narrative action or concert recordings here, however, but cinematic and acoustic montages. They are the result of interviews he conducted with musicians, over the period of a year, about how the voice expresses itself in public. His interviewees are Carolin Bechtle (jazz singer), Daniel Gloger (countertenor), Hanns-Friedrich Kunz (former director of the Stuttgart Hymnus Boys’ Choir), Marcela de Loa (soprano), and Helene Schneiderman (mezzo-soprano). Georgen depicts diverse ways of life and places, all of which revolve around the subject of voice. The different places he visited, such as the opera, sport stadiums, or concerts, represent the varied social and cultural realms in which the human voice plays a role.
The work is presented on four monitors, arranged together spatially and each with a designated soundtrack. Via a speaker in the entrance area, a fifth soundtrack transmits audience noises and brings a further level into play—the audience becomes part of the installation and completes it. In this way Georgen’s video highlights the social and cultural significance of vocal articulation, which can be a medium of professional singing as well as an acoustic instrument of the masses reflecting human emotions and reactions.
(Translation: Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2017)