Christina Kubisch: "It's so touchy" (1975). image copyright Christina Kubisch

Christina Kubisch (Germany * 1948)

Christina Kubisch studied painting, music and electronics in Bremen, Hamburg, Zürich and Milan. After an intense period of performances in the 1970s, she began creating sound and light installations and electroacoustic compositions. Her works have been shown in many solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia and in the Americas, and she has won several awards, such as the special German award for sound art, the Deutsche Klangkunstpreis, in 2008. Christina Kubisch has been teaching audio-visual art at the Saarbrücken Academy of Fine Arts since 1994. She is a member of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

In "It's so touchy," (1975) Kubisch plays a flute fitted with contact microphones while wearing thimbles on her fingers. The thimbles create rhythmic sounds that contrast with the conventional tone of the instrument. The film is part of the "Emergency Solos" series which she created in 1975 in Milan after finishing flute studies. With a touch of irony, "It's so touchy" plays on the cliché of new music and the interpretive role of women.

In "Weekend" (1975), Christina Kubisch blows into the mouthpiece of her flute through a gas mask until she runs out of air. Like "It's so touchy," this film is also part of the "Emergency Solos".