Formt die Technik die Musik? Montageästhetik zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts

Does technology shape music? Aesthetics of assembly at the beginning of the 20^th century. This article deals with the relationship between assembly in production technology and similar processes in musical composition. Can composers like Eric Satie, Igor Strawinsky or George Antheil, who used assembly methods in some of their compositions, be called assemblers? The authors point out that all three composers used assembly methods in different ways and with different purposes. Applying a theoretical approach inspired by media studies they come to the conclusion that the conditions under which musical works using assembly methods are shaped do not originate in technology but in the aesthetic convictions of the composer. Apart from assembly methods there are many other compositional principles the composer relies on. Technology may inspire music but does not determine the musical outcome.     

The impact of mining activities on the environment reflected by pollen,charcoal and geochemical analyses

This article presents results of a multi-proxy study of a fen deposit in the former mining district of Falkenstein near Schwaz in the Tyrol, Austria. The aim of the study in the framework of the special research program HiMAT (The History of Mining Activities in the Tyrol and Adjacent Areas – Impact on Environment & Human Societies) was to disclose the ecological impact of mining in pollen and heavy metal diagrams and to create a model combining the changes in palaeoecological proxies with historical evidences for mining. The application of this palaeoecological–historical model to prehistoric times allowed us to reconstruct the impact of mining and metallurgic activities in the surroundings of the fen during the last millennia. The results of stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, LOI, pollen and micro-charcoal analyses as well as geochemical analyses of scandium, lead and lead isotopes validated by historical and archaeological data are hereby presented.     

Die historia francorum senonensis und der Aufstieg des Hauses Capet

In this inquiry the author confronts the historiographical view of the rise of the Capetians to power, as represented by the Historia Francorum Senonensis, with historical reality. He comes to the conclusion that the medieval historian, writing in the thirties of the eleventh century, sought by the selection, combination, interpretation, and presentation of his passages to propagate a view which had originated at the archbishop's court at Sens. The actual political motive was the dispute of Sens with Reins over coronation rights; it was this that explains the anti-Capetian tendency of the author's account of the dynastic change in 987. Moreover, it is possible to discern a political consciousness which was able to consider the West-Frankish/French monarchy as independent from dynastic considerations. We are thus dealing not with a historiographical statement of the Carolingian point of view, but with the reaction to a particular situation in ecclesiastical politics combined with a non-personal theory of the state.     

Les Mains de Michel-Ange

This article focuses on a drawing, regarded by 18(th)-century amateurs as a masterpiece by Michelangelo, and serves as a point of departure to illuminate the amateur's fascination with the artist's hand. This self-referential representation of the artistic process attracted much comment among connoisseurs. As virtually all amateurs had their say on the meaning of ? les mains de Michel-Ange ? the drawing sheds further light on the objects of desire which informed the amateur's discourse and the mediality such discourse needed in order to join word and image.