In this special co-presentation by MUMA, LA and AFW, Swedish artist Erik Bünger presents a lecture-performance of his experimental video essay on the origins of music, The Third Man.

ERIK BÜNGER'S work focuses on phenomena, which are generally assumed to lie beyond the realm of language. Concepts such as 'voice', 'body', 'image' and 'nature' make up zones of indeterminacy – simultaneously inside and outside language. In performance lectures, videos, texts and musical compositions, he explores how such concepts, by referring to something mute and un­speakable beyond the reach of the linguistic, be­come central voids around which our reality is built up.

The Third Man (2010) presents an alternative theory about the origin of song: music as a parasite that infects humanity at some point in prehistory and then spreads like ripples from body to body. Some researchers propose that song may constitute the very first technology in the history of humanity; a way to control the emotions and movements of other beings before words and weapons. Song is also the first technology, that each individual encounters in life - it works its way into the womb before any other conditioning of the child can take place.