The Music Folder welcomes Wolfgang Voigt, one of the most influential artists for the development of the minimal techno scene. An electronic music DJ and producer from Cologne, Voigt has released over 160 albums and worked on around 30 musical projects under aliases such as Gas (among many others). Together with Michael Mayer and Jürgen Paape, he co-founded the iconic record label Kompakt.

Today, Wolfgang Voigt joins The Music Folder for a conversation with Claudia Attimonelli, scholar of Media Studies and Visual Culture. Their discussion revolves around Voigt’s lifelong fusion of music and visual art, tracing his path from minimalist techno pioneer to multidisciplinary artist. He explains how the label Kompakt developed a distinctive visual identity shaped by pop art and serial aesthetics, and how his musical and pictorial practices draw on sampling, abstraction, and repetition to access a “parallel reality” beyond conventional meaning, a concept at the heart of his Rückverzauberung (Reverse Enchantment) project. The interview also explores themes such as aesthetic contradiction, unpredictability, and the refusal to settle into a single artistic identity.

Interview by Claudia Attimonelli, 16/05/2023.

The Music Folder is a talk-series, curated by Archivio Storico Ricordi, which investigates the intersection of music, memory and arts.