I Am Lost To The World

Can one free one’s being from all the pressures of the world in a moment of pure, experienced presence? Can we step out of the world and its everyday confusions in a state of the greatest joy or also deep pain? – Are the world and life fulfilled in such a moment? Zen Buddhists call such enlightened moments ›satori‹, anchored in ›nirvana‹ and ›shunyata‹, the recognition of emptiness, a sudden freedom from the ego, a feeling of unconditional joy.

The literature which attempts to capture these unspoken and unnameable moments is rich and diverse. From the colourful and vivid images of the Tibetan Book of the Dead via the wordplay and conceptual play of the great European searcher for non-meaning Samuel Beckett to the Romantic poet Novalis, who conjures up the ›bottomless world‹ of darkness instead of a sensuous present in his Hymns to the Night – we wish to collect and communicate all this and allow you to experience it.

In musical terms hardly anyone has looked beyond the world through the gates of mystical connections than Gustav Mahler – particularly in his songs. Of his song I Am Lost To The World Gustav Mahler says: »This is sensitivity right up to the lips, which it does not pass. And: that is what I am myself!« It is about creating something for oneself far from the tumult of the world. In this sense this final morning weaves a musical and literary programme around the moment of emptiness, around the ego with no ego, around being absolutely in the now, around »I live alone in my Heaven, in my loving, in my song!« (Friedrich Rückert).

The Turbine Hall has no heating. We recommend appropriate clothing for this industrial heritage site.