The highest point in Vienna’s Donaustadt district is a ‘mountain of rubbish’ that has grown over decades from residual waste: the landfill site on Rautenweg is the setting for the performative sound installation "Modified Grounds #3 Vorago" by visual artist Katrin Hornek and composer Judith Unterpertinger. They view the landfill as a symbol of a state of perpetual digestion and, at the same time, indigestibility: rubbish does not disappear, but accumulates and becomes permanently embedded in the earth’s surface. As a result of chemical and thermal processes, it continues to ‘breathe’ and transform itself. A memory of global consumption processes emerges.

In their multi-part series "Modified Grounds", Hornek and Unterpertinger examine the geological changes brought about by human construction, production and consumption processes. The artists interpret data, scientific descriptions and narratives concerning geological, industrial and urban material movements as a musical score and translate them into musical structures. In the form of site-specific works, these can be experienced both acoustically and physically: Whilst the first part (2018) took place at a company in the building materials industry and the second part (2019) at a reinforced concrete bridge construction site, the third part – realised as part of Wien Modern as a walk-through sound installation for a 120-voice choir – now leads to the summit of the landfill site in Vienna’s 22nd district.

Exploring themes of devouring, digesting and discarding, the piece weaves together singing, sequences of sounds and choral incantations (Neue Wiener Stimmen, Wiener Kammerchor) to form a soundscape. ‘Modified Grounds #3’ brings to mind the global consequences of a capitalist practice of displacement, in which waste and toxic materials are shifted to the geographical peripheries.