What the catalogue shows is that actionism can live inside a structured project, not only in solo or body-art performance.
Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck (RS&G) is Rudolf Eb.er's main project from about 1988 onward and the most-cited piece of work in the Schimpfluch world. The name is a project alias rather than a band: Eb.er is the central figure throughout, with a few collaborators from the Schimpfluch circle (chiefly Joke Lanz and Dave Phillips). The argument the work makes is that the actionist sensibility and the psycho-physical research can be held inside a structured project rather than only in solo work · and RS&G is the main demonstration of that.
The sound rests on three things. Tape collage is the foundation: the work comes out of the post-Vienna-Actionist tape-edit and musique-concrète approach, with tape editing as the structural base. Its claim against the F·07 power-electronics and F·11 industrial-proper traditions is that tape collage is the foundation for the actionist sensibility rather than an add-on. Treated voice carries the front: Eb.er's vocals work within the actionist frame rather than as conventional singing. And ritual percussion and found objects make up the instrumentation, the post-Schimpfluch ritual sound turned into musical material.
The work engages the Vienna Actionists as material rather than as a passing reference, and is the clearest demonstration that actionism can be held inside structured sound art rather than only in body and performance art. The underlying claim is that late-twentieth-century European sound art can carry actionism as its foundation rather than as an addition.
The main releases work the approach across quite different records. Hirntrommel (Tochnit Aleph, 1994) holds the mature sound across the whole album · tape collage, treated voice, ritual percussion to the front. Asshole / Snail Dilemma (Tochnit Aleph, 2000) pushes into the most confrontational of the albums. A run of split releases and collaborations (with Joke Lanz / Sudden Infant, with Dave Phillips, with Aube and other Japanese collaborators) extends the work across the Schimpfluch collaborative circle.
Live performance is integral, not an add-on. RS&G's live work runs within the actionist performance frame · the post-Vienna-Actionist body performance carried into late-twentieth-century European sound art · and is part of the work rather than a sideline to the records.
Its importance after 1990 is as a foundation for the European actionist and ritual-noise network: RS&G does much to establish that ground, and the European actionist and ritual-noise work of the 1990s and 2000s builds on it. The Bureau treats RS&G as the most cited body of work in the Schimpfluch world.
The work continues today across the Schimpfluch circle. Recent activity holds much the same ground as the founding years, with collaborations and continued solo work extending it across the contemporary European avant-garde.