‘Ictus’

Objects, people, or animals that have been struck by lightning often display patterns that could almost be described as artistic. These branching, fernlike phenomena are known as Lichtenberg figures. The US writer Ben Lerner drew inspiration from them for his The Lichtenberg Figures (2004), an unconventional collection of sonnets characterised by lightning-fast changes of perspective, from almost banal observations and quotations to scientific observations and ironic commentary. The composer Eva Reiter took his texts as the basis for a stunning musical landscape – raw, disquieting, and intense.