To freely bloom - that is my definition of success.

 - Gerry Spence
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Onomatopoeia from EDEN by FREI

At the beginning of 2022 I was asked to record a sample of my writing for the lustrum of the Chair for Architecture Theory and the Philosophy of Technics at TU Wien, where I am a guest lecturer. 

Really unsure as to what would be 'suitable', I opted for the opening of EDEN by FREI, my 'concept narrative in the here & now about there where, the wherefore and forever.

sebastian michael singt mani matter

Mani Matter is a national treasure in Switzerland. He died far too young at the age of 36 in a car crash on his way to a performance in 1972, but his simple, humorously philosophical chansons in Bernese dialect have never ceased to be appreciated for their wit and poetry.

These are the songs I first played on the guitar as an early teenager, and they were the songs that turned me from someone who would "alletwäge nie" (never in a million years) sing in front of other people to someone who did so for a while professionally.

I've long wanted to record some of these and I'm finally now embarking on a small personal project to do so. I'm giving my own wholly inadequate English translations of the lyrics simply so that those who can't understand the language – and this would include many native German speakers – may be able to at least get the gist of what he is talking about in his inimitable and frankly 'untranslatable' way. (Nothing, you could argue, is 'untranslatable', but this loses a lot in translation, I am quite aware...)

With endless thanks to Mani Matter for his gift – enjoy. (Speaking of gift: apologies for any ads you may see. These are imposed by the copyright owner of the track and revenues do not come to me.)

EDEN live

You can follow Sebastian reading all of his 'concept narrative in the here & now about the where, the wherefore and forever', EDEN by FREI, on the new, dedicated EDEN YouTube channel. 

And of course the original blog-format online publication is still available if you want to read along, or if you want to get hold of any, some or all of the compact EDEN miniatures in paperback or as ebooks.

Coda from ​Orlando in the Cities 

This is a short excerpt from Orlando in the Cities, a playful literary odyssey through 2500 years of civilisation, commissioned for and first published in A Quantum City.

The full story behind this piece is given in the video's description on YouTiube, but I made this simple recording as part of my 'New Year's Videos' series, effectively to cast a bridge from the time when I wrote Orlando in the Cities in the middle of the 2010s, to the new decade that we're now in, where I hope to be formulating some new thoughts on what it is to be human in our age.

And there are also now some ideas taking shape for a project that will involve Orlando in the Cities in an experiential and also to some extent experimental manner. 

In Praise of Folly

The Sophistication Conference #3 took place at the Institute for Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics at TU Wien (University of Technology Vienna) in November 2019. I was again invited to present a reading as part of the opening session, this time Erasmus of Rotterdam's In Praise of Folly.

Reading the entire text would last well in excess of three hours, so for this occasion I edited it down to excerpts amounting to just over an hour.

(There is a short moment right at the beginning of the actual speech where the audio drops out. Don't worry if you want to listen: this lasts only a few seconds.)

Earth

This is a short excerpt from the chapter Earth from the poetic fiction The Planet Walk, which in turn forms part of EDEN by FREI, which is an experimental publishing project subtitled 'a concept narrative in the here & now about the where, the wherefore and forever".

You can read all of EDEN here.

Oration on the Dignity of Man

I was invited to read Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man in its entirety to a live audience at the Kuppelsaal of the TU (Technical University) Wien on 7th December 2017. 

This prompted me to not only study and edit the piece, but to also then re-record it and make it available as a video, with the text scrolling through so that anyone interested can listen to and read it at the same time. 

If you want to see the actual live reading, that's available too, as is a short excerpt which I released as a New Year's video for 2018.

Saturday's Sonnet

From the 23rd April 2016 to 23rd April 2017 – during the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare's death – I recorded all of Shakespeare's 154 Sonnets and posted them to YouTube as simple readings, with the text scrolling through.

I also picked one Sonnet each week to look at and talk about in more detail, and (with several gaps in the schedule) posted these video blog episodes to YouTube, normally on a Saturday, under the title Saturday's Sonnet.

They are all on The Sonneteer's dedicated YouTube channel, and if you just want to listen to the Sonnets themselves, they are also in their own playlist here.

The Power of Love – Love Trilogy

The Love Trilogy is a set of 'three plays about life on the edge of a century' and consists of The Power of Love, which received its premiere production at The Southwark Playhouse, Love Hurts, which was workshopped and had a rehearsed reading at Arcola Theatre and Time After Time. All three plays reached the shortlist, long list and final twenty, respectively of the Verity Bargate Award in separate years.

In this scene study from The Power of Love, Richard Stemp revisits the part he created in the original Southwark Playhouse production, Eugen.

ICON

ICON has been a long time in the making, undergoing several development stages in London – a rehearsed reading at Her Majesty's Theatre and a fringe production, then an internal workshop – before being invited to the New York Musical Festival, where it will receive its American premiere in July/August 2016.

Here, the writing team of Jonathan Kaldor (Music & Lyrics) and Sebastian Michael (Libretto), as well as Michael Alvarez (Director, Rehearsed Reading London and Workshop LA) and James Lent (Musical Director, Workshop LA) talk about the project and what particularly excites them about it.

EDEN by FREI

EDEN by FREI – a 'concept narrative in the here & now about the where, the wherefore and forever is a writing experiment in progress. This video is from The Snowflake Collector, one of several self-contained but interconnected story strands featured there.

Angel

Angel remains the only novel I've written so far. In this short clip from June 2015, I talk about the experience – and challenge – of getting it published...

The Sonneteer

Built around Sonnets by William Shakespeare, The Sonneteer premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2014. Here you can listen to one of the sonnets we recorded as an audio sample and watch an interview I gave to FilmBright's Niklaas Portvliet about the play:

Top Story

Top Story premiered at The Old Vic Tunnels in January 2013 and also now exists as a video in full on the play's website:

The Hour of Living
This is the trailer for my first feature film, The Hour of Living.
​
I wrote, produced and directed this ultra-low budget project, and I also play the part of George in it.

A short mini-docu about the making of it, shot and edited by Simon Denzler and Moritz Anselm Schermbach gives you a bit of background.

And there's also a short interview I gave on the occasion of the film's Italian premiere at the Film Festival della Lessinia 2012.
The clip on the right is a short excerpt from the director's commentary on the DVD of The Hour of Living.

This tells the story of how I met Pepe Belmonte – literally in a box – and how he and his music came to be an integral part to my first feature film.

Elder Latimer is in Love

And here are three short clips from an interview I did about Elder Latimer is in Love which premiered at Arcola Theatre in September 2009, directed, like Top Story above, by Adam Berzsenyi-Bellaagh.
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