Andreas Ammer is not a famous name in the US, but in Germany he’s long been the object of acclaim. Having been a professor at the University of Munich, journalist, TV and radio producer, playwright and director, he’s probably best known for experimental radio theater, a form he’s been practicing since 1990.

Andreas Ammer, one of the most successful German radio drama artists of the last two decades, works with audio art on the border-line between the ‘classic’ radio drama and other representational forms. His radio plays work with various acoustic features like music, noises and language, and they can always be defined as narrative: they tell stories, yet not merely with words, but by using all their possible acoustic characteristics as storytelling devices. Moreover, Ammer’s audio plays are performed live on stage and in front of an audience, recorded, simultaneously broadcast and later brought out on CD. Since these performances are always produced in cooperation with a radio station, the acoustic art works are still called radio plays. The performances themselves are called audio performances, although of course the audience sees the performance… In the live performance, the bodily present performers add another sensory data layer to the acoustic one.

—from Audionarratology, by Jarmila Mildorf and Till Kinzel

1993 saw the production of two noteworthy pieces of post-punk cultural produce based on Inferno, the first cantica of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. One was Anton Corbijn’s video for Depeche Mode’s “Walking In My Shoes.” The more interesting one was Ammer’s landmark production Radio Inferno for Bayerischer Rundfunk, with noteworthy contributors like legendary BBC DJ John Peel, guitarist Caspar Brötzman, and singer Yvonne Ducksworth as Beatrice. It also featured two members of that clamorous and pioneering industrial group Einstürzende Neubauten: singer Blixa Bargeld served as the voice of Dante, and percussionist F.M. Einheit scored the production, which accordingly recalls Neubauten theatre scores of the era like Die Hamletmaschine and Faustmusik. Ammer would go on to collaborate fruitfully with Einheit several more times after the latter’s 1995 departure from Neubauten, culminating with 2002’s Crashing Aeroplanes.

The entire production, broken up into 34 cantos just like the actual book, was released on CD in 1994. That’s out of print, but it can be streamed on the marvelous ubuweb site. Or you can just listen to it right here.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Salvador Dali goes to Hell: Astounding illustrations for Dante’s ‘Inferno’
Watch Keith Emerson and Dario Argento work on the soundtrack to ‘Inferno’ in 1980

‘The Delightful Mount.’
 
We are in Hell.

That’s how it begins.

We are in Hell and have to find our way out.

That’s the “tagline” for Dante’s epic allegorical poem the Divine Comedy.

The Divine Comedy tells of the poet Dante “midway upon the journey” of his life when suddenly he finds himself lost “within a forest dark” having strayed from his “straightforward path.” It’s like the opening of some grim horror story or even a disturbing pulp detective tale—where the hero awakes lost and menaced in a dark and foreboding place.

It was another great poet T. S. Eliot who once wrote “Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them. There is no third.”

In terms of Europe, he was right—though some may now add Goethe.

Shakespeare with his poetry and plays changed the English language and offered an unrivaled insight into the human condition.

Dante certainly added to our language and literature and gave some insight into human understanding—but his greatest literary feat was creating our vision of Hell.

Hell with its gates and abandon all hope ye who enter here. Hell with its nine circles—its brutal, horrific punishments, fire and ice, mythical creatures and monstrous demons.

The Divine Comedy is an allegory about sin and redemption. Dante is led by yet another poet Virgil—chosen because he described Hell in his poem the Aeneid—through the Inferno (Hell) on towards Purgatory and Paradise.

Understandable therefore that Dante’s epic tale would appeal as a subject matter to an old superstitious Catholic like Salvador Dali. The fact that this poem had already been illustrated by William Blake and Gustave Dore only added to its attraction

In 1957, the Italian government approached Salvador Dali to produce a series of 101 watercolor illustrations intended to accompany a new edition of the Divine Comedy intended to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Dante’s birth in 1965. Dali set to work. But when the first of Dali’s paintings were exhibited at the Palazzo Pallavicini in Rome, a section of the Italian public were disgusted that a Spaniard had been hired to celebrate their country’s greatest poet rather than some Italian. The project was quickly dropped.

However, Dali seemed unperturbed. He finished the project.

In 1964, Dali approached his French publisher, Joseph Foret, who was then producing a volume of Dali’s illustrations to accompany a new edition of Don Quixote. Dali suggested the idea of publishing his illustrations in a new edition of Dante’s epic poem. Foret took a selection of Dali’s watercolors to the publishers Les Heures Claires—who were equally enthusiastic about the project.

Two engravers—Raymond Jacquet with his assistant, Mr. Taricco—were hired to hand carve the 3,500 wood blocks necessary to reproduce Dali’s watercolors. A limited edition of the book was published in Italian. Sets of Dali’s prints are still available to buy online for plenty of lucre.

Dali’s illustrations feature many of his trademark images—elongated limbs, melting faces, and disturbing unquiet. Though his paintings do not attempt to compete with the illustrations of Dore and Blake—Dali’s images do create a surreal interpretation of Hell and all its punishments. Below is the complete set of Dali’s illustrations for the first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy—the Inferno—as recounts the poet’s journey from dark wood through the gates of the underworld onto the nine circles of Hell. The full poem can be read here.
 

‘Reassurance.’
 

I was among those, in Limbo, in suspense, and a lady called to me, she so beautiful, so blessed, that I begged her to command me.

 

‘Charon.’
 
More of Dali’s vision of Hell, after the jump…

 
Spotted in the Telegraph: Mihai Marius Mihu’s interesting LEGO re-creations of the nine levels of Hell as presented in Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy, written in the 14th century.

Curiously, Mihu disavows any first-hand understanding of Dante’s work, saying: “I didn’t read the Divine Comedy, only the small descriptions of the circles I found on the websites. I didn’t want to be much influenced by the original descriptions because I wanted to give a whole new fresh approach for each circle. I thought more about the significance of titles and from then on it was only my imagination.” The nine LEGO panels seem pretty good to me, but I suspect a Dante scholar might have a few quibbles.

Click on any of the images to get a larger view.
 

I. LIMBO: “A place of monotony, here the souls are punished to wander in restless existence while they moan helplessly in echoes between the ruins of a temple.”
 

II. LUST: “Surrounded by erotic representations, those overcome by lust are forced to watch and experience disgusting things, ultimately being condemned to drown in the menstrual river.”
 

III. GLUTTONY: “The circle itself is a living abomination, a hellish digestive system revealing horrific faces with mouths ready to devour the gluttons over and over for eternity.”
 

IV. GREED: “This pompous place is reserved for the punishment of the greedy ones.”
 

V. ANGER: “In this depressing place the souls are trapped in the swamp, they can’t move and they cannot manifest their frustration which is making them even more angry.”
 

VI. HERESY: “The giant demon watches closely over his fire pit, dwarfing the damned that are dragging the new arrivals in the boiling lava. Those who committed the greatest sins against God are getting a special treatment inside the temple where they are doomed to burn for eternity in the scorching flames.”
 

VII. VIOLENCE: “A place of intense torture where the horrific screams of the damned are eternally accompanied by the hellish beats of drums.”
 

VIII. FRAUD: “In Fraud the Demons enjoy altering the shape of souls, this is how they feed.”
 

IX. TREACHERY: “Lucifer lies here chained by the Angelic Seal which keeps him captive in the frozen environment.”
 
via Coilhouse
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Einstein on the Beach: Philip Glass goes Lego
LEGO recreation of the ‘You killed the car’ scene from ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’

 
Before America’s Got Talent, there was Stairway to Stardom, a public access talent show, broadcast in New York during the late 1970s and 1980s. Shot in what looks like someone’s basement, or the rehearsal room for a David Lynch film, Stairway to Stardom offered the young, the old, and even the deluded a chance to achieve the success their ambition suggested was theirs. Clips of this wonderfully bizarre series have popped up on YouTube over the years, and reveal what fans of Stairway to Stardom have known for years - that this camp, fun and rather charming show is still well ahead of Simon Cowell’s smug, corporate juggernaut.
 

Horowitz and Spector sing “Something’s Rotten in Translyvania”, 1988
 

Stairway to Stardom - Opening Titles 1984
 
More joys from ‘Stairway to Stardom’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Fernando Caetano