your palaces are empty (all we ever wanted)

The statues have been toppled, the colonies dissolved, the servants have fled, there are stoats in the ballroom, roots have gripped the stairway, the palaces are in ruins, capitalism smokes one last cigarette, bloodless, the Anthropocene coughs in consternation and amidst all of this someone whispers: but I loved you.
Thomas Köck moves through different scenarios and times that are connected by an excessive search for love and power, redemption and transcendence: In the Brazilian jungle around the year 1550, conquistadors are on the move in the name of God and the crown, ruthlessly subjugating people and nature in search of Eldorado. In the America of our day, an opioid crisis is rampant, people are fading away, on the assembly line, in their cars, in their mansions, veins and mouths open, while corporations are in pursuit of profit.

And amongst it all the insight, whispered over and over: we knew everything, we did nothing. Powerless visionaries walk through the circles of hell in this missa in cantu, a powerful, melancholy chant joined continuously by more and more voices and memories.