Bernhard Lang: The Travel Agency is on Fire 23 January Vienna

Fr, 23. Jan. 2026, 19:30

Vienna | Concert Hall, Lothringerstrasse 20, Berio Hall

The Travel Agency is on Fire (2020)
based on a text from the estate of William S. Burroughs
Sarah Maria Sun, voice
PHACE Ensemble
sarahmariasun.de
www.phace.at
konzerthaus.at

The Travel Agency is on Fire is based on a selection of “cut-up” experiments by William S. Burroughs on texts by a range of canonical writers, from William Shakespeare and Arthur Rimbaud to William Wordsworth and James Joyce. Burroughs selected the source texts, cut them up and juxtaposed the fragments to select random word combinations and create new word compositions. The Travel Agency is on Fire, which has only been available in the archives since 2010, fascinates scholars and Burroughs fans alike as it sheds light on the experimental processes underlying Burroughs’ work.

Musically, the cut-up strategies that Burroughs developed together with Brion Gysin and visualised in the films with Anthony Balch and Ian Sommerville are referenced in various ways. Essential here is Burroughs’ maxim: “Play it back, play it back, play it all back,” which refers to a change in consciousness through the superimposition and doubling of the real with samples and loops. (See Burroughs/Gysin The Job)

The piece is electro-acoustic and uses synthesizers, samplers, a processed electric guitar and a loop patch “Dreammachine”; all instruments and the voice are amplified. The piece is enhanced by a video and an installation of live cams. The video was shot in Vienna and Paris as well as on various railway lines.

Bernhard Lang, 2022

Dokumentationswebsite Festival SPIEL! Games as Critical Practice, mit: 
Travel Agency is on Fire (2020, WP)
Sarah Maria Sun, Voice
Ensemble Soyuz-21 
www.criticalgames.ch/events/bernhard-lang-travel-agency