ribwort plantain, Nicholas Morrish

FLUIDE III: WATER – Neck around large stones

A musical and visual journey of discovery through the Vienna Water Tower

The language drips melodiously from their mouths, flowing upstream towards the disused water tower. Oscillating between too much and too little, danger and fascination, ribwort plantain invites us on a musical and visual journey.

At the Favoriten Water Tower, the spitzwegerich collective explores the element that was once stored there, examining the body as a reservoir of water as well as the „body of water“ itself.

In Nicholas Morrish’s composition, Gundi Feyrer’s text flows freely, meandering through layers and condensations as it ascends the spiralling tower; the libretto bubbles and fizzes within the acoustically striking architecture. Water is broken down into its physical states and translated into language, music, movement and images.
The audience makes their way up the stairs, encountering suspended objects, string puppets, dripping sounds and voices that can only be pinpointed as they move through the space. A process of emergence from what appears to be primordial chaos. 

“We attempt the impossible: to hold onto the fluid, to freeze moments in time, and to give the liquid a solid form. We assign themes to bodily fluids, turn the tiniest particles into a world, and give them a stage. We turn the inside out, moving from the concrete to the abstract; from the body to the act of leaving it.” (spitzwegerich)

With „Fluide III: Water: Neck Around Large Stones“, spitzwegerich will complete his trilogy on liquids in 2026: “Snot, Blood and Water”.

THE WATER TOWER

In 1998/99, to supply water to the rapidly growing metropolis, particularly the two high-altitude districts 10 and 12, the Favoriten Water Tower lost its original function as early as 1910 following the commissioning of the Second Vienna Mountain Spring Water Pipeline and was only put into operation in exceptional cases until its final decommissioning in 1969. Today, the district’s landmark serves as a spectacular backdrop for artistic events on the theme of water.




https://spitzwegeriche.at
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Concept – ribwort plantain
Composition – Nicholas Morrish
Text – Gundi Feyrer
Play development – Flora Besenbäck, Melina Cerha-Marcher, Simon Dietersdorfer, Gundi Feyrer, Lisa Furtner, Sabrina Hager, Anna Hauf, Felix Huber, Birgit Kellner, Martina Rösler, Christian Schlechter, Martin Siemann, Emmy Steiner, Rebekah Wild
Performance – Simon Dietersdorfer, Lisa Furtner, Anna Hauf, Nicholas Morrish, Emmy Steiner, Rebekah Wild

A production by spitzwegerich in co-production with Musiktheatertage Wien



With friendly support

ribwort plantain is a Viennese collective specialising in contemporary puppet and object theatre, which develops its work at the intersection of literature, music, choreography and performance. Founded in 2013 by Birgit Kellner and Christian Schlechter, the management team has since been expanded to include Felix Huber and Rebekah Wild.
In the development of these pieces, a distinct theatrical language emerges in which materials, abstract bodies, text, movement and sound are treated as equals. The projects grow out of collective, interdisciplinary development processes and extensive research. As independent performers, characters and objects make use of unique possibilities for transformation. Spitzwegerich combines a passion for formal experimentation with poetic precision, humour and a curiosity for new realms of perception.
In 2022, the collective was awarded the Outstanding Artist Award for the performing arts. In 2025, spitzwegerich was nominated for the Nestroy Award for Best OFF Production for “staub… a little mindblow*”.

Gundi Feyrer
Born in Heilbronn am Neckar; 1978–80: Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (sculpture); 1980–84: Hamburg University of Fine Arts, studying “Fine Art” under Franz-Erhardt Walther, Gerhard Rühm and Tomas Schmit (Fluxus). Since 1980: book objects, numerous volumes of prose and poetry, drawing, animated and experimental films, radio plays, radio features, plays, performances, sculpture, music, translations from English and Spanish into German.
Most recently: “Sentences That Rain Thoughts”, 2024, and “The Temple of Nothingness – The Art of Magic”, 2020, both published by Ritter Verlag, Klagenfurt, as well as “Harmonious Errors“, InterVallVerlag, Cologne, 2024; Exhibition (drawing/installation/film) „The World Has No Goal – Exuberant Signs and Sentences“, Museum Inselspitze, Heilbronn/Neckar, May 2026.
Recipient of several awards, most recently the H.C. Artmann Prize from the City of Vienna in 2018; writer-in-residence at Monticello, Italy, in 2026.
Website: www.gundifeyrer.com

Nicholas Morrish
Nicholas Morrish is a Berlin-based composer and electronic musician who works in concert, installation, multimedia and theatre contexts. His solo electronic practice explores synthetic representations of human, non-human and instrumental bodies as speculative social environments. In 2025, his project Belly and Other Members was nominated for Forecast 10, where it was mentored by Ata Ebtekar (Sote); in 2026, he is artist-in-residence at the Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm.

Playing times
19 September 19:30
20 September, 4.00 pm
20 September 19:30
23 September, 7.30 pm
24 September 19:30
25 September 19:30
26 September, 4.00 pm
26 September 19:30
Venue
Favoriten Water Tower
3 Windtenstraße
1100 Vienna
Languages
German
Tickets
© Michael Gizicki