Acziun Susch › Archive of Events › 2021 › DornerRastl /AT O/MISSION POSSIBLE audio guide premiere

Acziun Susch commission 2021

DornerRastl /AT

O/MISSION POSSIBLE - new audio guide launch

Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl
Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl

02.10.2021 

guided tours with participation of creators

12 PM & 4 PM

Entry with Muzeum Susch ticket. 

Important: Please bring your mobile phone & headphones. 

Please sign up to book your spot at info@muzeumsusch.ch or call us at +41 (0) 81 861 03 03. 


A tour at 12 PM will be followed by a meeting with the authors of the guided tour: Willi Dorner & Lisa Rastl at Muzeum Susch Auditorium. 


In July we were very happy to host Austrian artistic duo Lisa Rastl and Willi Dorner for the residency leading to a creation of O/MISSION POSSIBLE – a new audio guide conceived in collaboration with blind pedagogue Erich Schmid.

Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl
Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl

Unique architecture of Muzeum Susch is here put forward and for discussion. Together with Mr. Schmidt and from his point of reference, artists walked through and experienced the museum spaces questoning how he sensed and constructed in his mind tmuseum maze-like building. Being not visually distracted, Mr. Schmid depends on his hearing, smell, temperature and his sense of balance and touch. Which impression does Mr. Schmidt get? And „Im-Pression“ seems to be most appropriate word. Bringing forward a bodily experience and gesture.

Herewith we are proud and excited to invite you for a unique tour of the Museum Susch!

On the premiere day, 02.10.2021  together with Willi Dorner and Lisa Rastl , we will discover and experience museum’s spaces in a very special way. Commisioned by Acziun program and created in summer bilingual audio guide will be then uploaded on Muzeum Susch App for free use of every visitor. That way we invite everybody to embark themselves for this unique, led by Mr.Schmid voice, journey through the architecture and a multisensorial experience.

Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl
Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl


"o/mission possible" is an audio guide created with a blind person.

Being blind from his birth, Mr. Erich Schmid had never been able to see and therefore refer to any visual impressions. He states always that he sees nothing, not even black nor white, just nothing. So unimaginable. Herewith we reach limits of perception and thinking.

I believe that it is equally inconceivable for us to comprehend what kind of "picture" a blind person creates. Through inquiries I learn that Erich actually makes pictures. We talk about it with words he has learned and yet, his images and ideas about the words we use together are different, simply different than for us, the sighted people. We talked about his understanding of "red" for example: for him it is just a word, but he has no conventional image and emotion attached to it. And "wall" is a sound, an experience in the form of touch.

These introductory remarks are important to me in order to better understand what it means for a blind person to walk through a museum without being guided, led into given spaces.


Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl
Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl


For him, the rooms open up through a sound. He produces sounds in order to perceive the dimensions of a room via the echo or - to determine whether it is just a passageway or where there is a bench or an opening in the wall. Hearing is his number one sense of orientation.

With this audio-guide, I want to offer visitors a special approach to the building, to its architecture. The art, which is usually the focus here, and also the beauty of the Museum Susch architecture, are secondary for Mr. Schmid during a first encounter. He has to find his way around and this process demands all his attention. To walk relying only on his orientation, turned out to be challenging: like in the true labyrinth, entering and traveling itself is exciting, when finding way out requires effort and extra sharpened attention.

The guide was co-created with a sound technician Paul Ebhart recording Mr. Schmid voice while his walk through museum spaces. You hear both – sound of the rooms and Mr. Schmid's words as he orientates himself and goes his way. The building, which is charged with spatial peculiarities as well as with works of art currently exhibited, is broken down here to an object -like phenomenon that consists of sound, it can be touched, it feels and smells different. It is reduced to an object, which in Mr. Schmid's case is not a visual event.

I invite you to this walk and to get involved in this experience, which allows us to omit, to disregard our all-dominating sense of sight and offers a possibility to enter into other spheres of experience and perception. In the rooms of the Museum Susch this contrast of experiences becomes even more clearly perceptible for us, the sighted people.

Willi Dorner, 22.7.2021

Read more about DornerRastl /AT comission here. 

Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl
Courtesy DornerRastl. Credit: Lisa Rastl