ABSTRACT
The scream is still not an easy presence in contemporary Western art and music despite the innovative work undertaken by Wolfsohn, Hart and those artists cited, who have worked to utilize inter-cultural ideas and to extend vocal delivery beyond purveying logos. The performed or artistically depicted scream continues to have transgressive connotations and can provoke disturbance and discomfort, unlike many other liminal performative/artistic strategies which have lost their shock-value and rebellious connotations. The most influential source for Neubauten's scream was Artaud's Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu which Bargeld had hoped to direct with Heiner Mller. One of the many effective devices which Bargeld's scream can encompass is his use of a quasi-musical scale. This can be either melancholic or elevating. In more recent work, Bargeld's scream reverts to being part of an instrumental sound collage as in the early days of Kollaps or Stahlmusik; it then recalls Artaud's screams on Pour en finir.
