above: excerpt from Malleus-Medusa, 2024 [to hear the sound press the sound icon located in the lower right corner of the moving image]

malleus - medusa (canto 1)

2024

music, sound film composition, 4K digital film

9 minutes 32 seconds

limited edition of 3 + 2 AP

Credits

Music and sound composed by Monika Weiss

Choreography of movement, camera, drawings, percussion, piano, and film montage by Monika Weiss

Speaking voice: Disha Harjani

Vocalists: Kelly Beckman, Katie Beyers, Mary Kate Charles, Ingrid Piazza

Movement performers: Disha Harjani, Madeline Aleman

Sound composition incorporates Aletheia (Girl in River Water), 2005 by Meena Alexander (1951-2018). Written after seeing Monika Weiss’ performance/sculpture Lethe Room at Lehman College Art Gallery, CUNY, published in the artist’s monograph Monika Weiss-Five Rivers (Lehman College Art Gallery & Editions Lallouz, 2007) and in Alexander’s book of poems Quickly Changing River (TriQuaterly, Northwestern University Press, 2008). Included with permission of historian, author and Professor emeritus, David Lelyveld, husband of the late Meena Alexander.

For this film the artist filmed Malleus Maleficarum (1486) by Heinrich Kramer, edition printed in Venice in 1574, Special Collections at Washington University Libraries. Special thanks to Cassie Brand, Curator of Rare Book

Curated by Yohanna M Roa for WhiteBox, New York

Artist Statement

Malleus-Medusa (Canto1), 2024, is a first part of an experimental film and music composition which I created in response to Malleus-Maleficarum, a 15th century legal and practical guide for inquisitors on methods of torture, prosecution, and execution of women, which became the standard legal text on women and witchcraft. My ecofeminist approach relates the oppression of women with the oppression of lands, cultures and the environment. I composed the sound based on the poem Aletheia (Girl in River Water), 2005, by the late Meena Alexander (1951-2018), a world-renowned poet and my dearest departed friend.

Conceived as a sonic and moving image meditation, the film opens with what seems to be a shadow of an anonymous woman cast over the pages of Malleus Maleficarum. At some point, the figure morphs into a close-up of a face, suggesting Medusa of Greek myth. I incorporate here polyphonic and rhythmic sound environment, reframing Alexander’s poem as a form of layered speech, often deconstructing the sentences into repetitive singular words which echo one another. The speaking voice is eventually overcome by a additional voices, singing and lamenting without words. This vocal composition is further layered over rhythmic sounds that resemble explosions. I composed this part as based on the recording of my bare hands drumming against the surface of an iron sculpture. Filmed overhead, my abstract drawings appear in the film juxtaposed with pages from the book, together resembling burned lands. The resulting image and sound strata create a visual and sonic density akin to remnants of a battlefield.

Malleus-Maleficarum left a trail of legacy of oppression against women still present in various forms in contemporary Western culture. I first read the book over 20 years ago in my native Poland. Through this new work that eventually will be composed of several Cantos, I hope to point to this book’s long-term influence and the misogyny rampant both then and now. This torture manual was a best-selling book for over a century, going through multiple editions and translations. Scholars estimate that approximately 110,000 trials were held in Europe between 1450 and 1750, with half of the trials ending with execution, during a period when religious organizations held sway over the masses, backed patriarchal rule, and played an important role in the everyday lives of citizens. I chose Malleus Maleficarum to point at the long-standing legacy of patriarchal structures of power and the ongoing colonizing of women in contemporary culture and law. Canto 1 of Malleus-Medusa focuses on unforgetting, wrath and lament in relation to the book’s influence on our culture, paving way towards future Cantos evoking the myth of Medusa, rebirth and cleansing.

Exhibition

End Game, WhiteBox, New York, 2024

Artists: Crackhead Barney, Terry Berkowitz, Tania Candiani, Peter Cramer, Jim Costanzo, Nate Dallimore, Dirty Churches, Jason File, Noah Fischer, Carla Gannis, Guerrilla Girls, Joshua Harris, Pablo Helguera, G.H. Hovagimyan, John Jackson, Enrique Ježik, Nina Leo and Moez Surani, Ferran Martin, Mark Stephen Meadows, Alex Melamid, Jason Mena, Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, Simonetta Moro, Ivan Navarro, William Powhida, Lorenzo Pace, Paris 68 Redux, Pasha Radezski, Shama Rahman and Olive Gingrich, Duke Riley, Arlene Rush, Avelino Sala and Eugenio Merino, Franck Saïssi, Raphaele Shirley and Al Ramos, Gregory Sholette, Federico Solmi, Alesha Stupin, Rob Strati, The29.art, Jon Tsoi, Jack Waters, Monika Weiss, Phyllis Yampolsky. Curators: Ali Hossaini, Anthony Haden-Guest, Juan Puntes, Marat Guelman, Noah Fischer, Raul Zamudio, Stephen Zacks, Yev Gelman, Yohanna M Roa.

Monika Weiss’ works in the exhibition: Malleus-Medusa (Canto 1), 2024, Lethe, 2022