VOR SONNEN-AUFGANG | LAIBACH | 2017
before the nuclear sunrise: the abyss of light
a short film by Michael and Laibach
“Their magnum opus. It is spectacular and sublime.”
The Quietus
Vor Sonnen-Aufgang
Saup and Laibach
“Vor Sonnen-Aufgang” portrays the last days of Earth’s untouched atmosphere, just before the blue flash in the Jornada del Muerto desert on July 16, 1945.
In early 1945, Werner Heisenberg’s nuclear reactor experiment B8 in the atomic cave of Haigerloch, Germany ignites a chain of iterative erratic events: 664 uranium cubes on chains longing for criticality while hovering over a reactor pool filled with heavy water. Right above the reactor on top of the cave’s enclosing rock is a beautiful church, where the son of god on the cross is hovering over the heavy waters from the reactor pool right below. A transmutation of the Bible’s book of Genesis, where the spirit of god is hovering over the waters of the abyss.
The name of the church is Trinity, just like the name of the first atomic bomb that detonated a few months later irreversibly transforming the atmosphere into the Atomsphere. An effort to supersede the German atomic program believing whoever had the bomb first would win the war.
Filmed on the “Day of the Sun”, a public holiday in nuclear North Korea (where LAIBACH became the first-ever Western rock group to perform), Nietzsche’s “abyss of light” is put into this erratic enigmatic context, where humankind, through the application and “mastery” of atomic processes, begins to create a new planetary environment through the transmutation of elements and minds:
the epoch of the nuclear Übermensch bred in the plutonic cave, where Werner Heisenberg and his colleagues created mankind’s first-ever cave painting with radioisotopes on the canvas of time. Time, the destroyer of worlds (Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, Verse 32), that froze in Japan, the land of the rising sun, on an early summer morning.
Oh Himmel über mir, du Reiner! Tiefer! Tiefer!
Du Licht-Abgrund!
Du bist meine Reinheit,
Mein Glück vor Sonnen-Aufgang
Du bist meine Höhe
Oh Himmel über mir
Du Schamhafter!Hier kommt die Sonne, die Sonne hell
Oh Himmel in der Nacht, du Feiner, Tiefer! Höher!
Ich weiss es schon
Du willst mich los sein;
Schon kommt die Morgendämmerung
Du bist meine Freiheit
Oh Himmel über mir
Du, VerschwinderHier kommt die Sonne, die Sonne hell
Hier kommt die Sonne, die Sonne hell
Die Sonne hell
(перевод Сергей Есенин)
Перед восходом солнца
О небо надо мной, Чистое!
Глубокое! Глубокое!
Ты бездна света!
Ты моя чистота,
Моё счастье перед восходом солнца.
Ты моя высота.
О небо надо мной, Стыдливое!
Вот восходит солнце,
Солнце яркое О ночное небо,
Изящное! Глубокое! Высокое!
Я уже знаю это.
Ты хочешь избавиться от меня,
Уже занимается заря.
Ты моя свобода.
О небо надо мной, Исчезающее!
Вот восходит солнце,
Солнце яркое
Oh heaven above me, you pure!
Deeper! Deeper!
You abyss of light!
You are my purity
Happiness before sunrise
You are my elevation
Oh heaven above me
You bashful!Here comes the sun, the bright sun
Oh heaven in the night, you fine one,
deeper! Higher!
I already know it
You want to be rid of me;
Morning dawn already comes
You are my freedom
Oh heaven above me
You, vanishingHere comes the sun, the sun is bright
Here comes the sun, the sun is bright
The bright sun
Oh cielo sobre mi
Usted puro
Más profundo, más profundo
Abismo de luz
Tu eres mi pureza
Mi felicidad antes del amanecer
Tu eres mi altura
Oh cielo sobre mi
Tímido
Aqui viene el sol
El sol es brillante
Oh cielo en la noche
Tu mas fino
Más profundo, más alto
Ya lo se
Quieres deshacerte de mi
El amanecer ya viene
Tu eres mi libertad
Oh cielo sobre mi
Derrochador
Aqui viene el sol
El sol es brillante
Aqui viene el sol
El sol es brillante
El sol
Video directed by MICHAEL SAUP
Produced by ANDREAS ERHART
Composition by MATEVŽ KOLENC
Voice by MINA ŠPILER
Performed by LAIBACH
Co-produced by TRAMAL FILMS, Ljubljana
Green screen filming by ANTITALENT, Zagreb
Special thanks
RAVEN, ROSA-LEE, ROBIN & MOONIE
REAL ART ESTATE
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY
HAIGERLOCH ATOMIC CAVE
SUPERKRAFT
released on Mute records on 14 July 2017