The work shows that the Schimpfluch circle can carry several distinct projects at once.
Joke Lanz is the Swiss noise artist behind Sudden Infant, the project he has run continuously since 1989. Born in Switzerland in 1965, Lanz is a core member of the Schimpfluch-Gruppe (the European actionist and ritual-noise collective founded in Zurich in 1987 by Rudolf Eb.er) and a long-running collaborator with Eb.er across the whole post-1989 period. His work runs mainly through Sudden Infant · the actionist sensibility and the psycho-physical research held inside a structured project.
Sudden Infant works within the Schimpfluch world from 1989 onward. The founding years (c. 1989 to c. 2000) hold his most-cited work, mostly on small-edition cassette and CD through Schimpfluch Associates and other specialist labels (Tochnit Aleph, RRRecords and the European specialist network). The sound rests on three things: tape collage and concrète composition (the base, continuous with the Schimpfluch tape-collage approach); treated voice and actionist vocals (Lanz's voice worked within the actionist frame); and ritual percussion and found objects (the Schimpfluch instrumentation carried into Sudden Infant).
After 2000 Lanz extends the work into European avant-garde sound art along two lines: continued Sudden Infant work across the 2000s and 2010s, holding much the same ground as the founding years; and solo turntablism, which carries the work into free improvisation and contemporary experimental music. The turntable work runs close to F·13 free improvisation · several collaborations there make up much of his post-2000 work.
Within the Schimpfluch-Gruppe, the three main bodies of work divide cleanly. Eb.er's solo Rudolf is the most direct; his Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck is the most-cited; and Lanz's Sudden Infant is the longest-running single project in the circle · together they show that Schimpfluch can carry several distinct projects at once.
His collaborations run across the circle. The long partnership with Rudolf Eb.er (the most cited collaboration in the whole post-1989 Schimpfluch world) takes in split releases (Sudden Infant + RS&G), live performances (the Schimpfluch group work across several members) and studio work. Further collaborations with Dave Phillips (the Swiss sound artist, a main Schimpfluch collaborator), with Japanese artists, and across European avant-garde sound art extend the work further.
Lanz has been based in Berlin since the early 2000s. That work runs close to the post-1990 Berlin avant-garde sound-art scene of the 1990s and 2000s while staying its own thing through the Schimpfluch actionist sensibility and the post-2000 turntable work.
Its importance after 1990 is as a foundation for the European actionist and ritual-noise network: Sudden Infant does much to establish the ground after 1989, and the European actionist and ritual noise of the 1990s and 2000s builds on it. The Bureau treats Sudden Infant as the longest-running single project in the Schimpfluch circle.