Polish Performance Archive

Description by Filmoteka Muzeum

17th October 1985 saw Jerzy Truszkowski’s performance Hysteria of Philosophy or How to Masturbate with a Hammer at Warsaw’s Galeria Stodoła, featuring Libera, Irena Jagiełka and Barbara Konopka. The event marks the beginning of their band Sternenhoch, which borrowed its name from the title of the book Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch” by Ladislav Klima.

The makeup of the band was not firmly fixed. Libera played bass, electric guitars and piano, Truszkowski did the vocals. Also active were Barbara Konopka (electric viola), Ryszard Idziak (drums), Barbara Wysocka (bass guitar and vocals), Anna “Mirosawa” Nowak (vocals) and Jacek Rydecki.

Truszkowski noted ten concerts of the band between October 1985 and September 1988. “Though we did a cover of Coltrane called ‘Love Supreme’, we were mainly inspired by post-industrial punk, e.g. DAF,” recalls Libera.

The presented footage comes from a concert recorded in 1986 at one of the clubs in Lublin (probably “Areus”). The same year saw the band’s performances in Lublin at the Catholic University’s students’ event “Kullages'86”. Libera played the piano, and Truszkowski was on vocals, like a year before when they performed at the 2nd outdoor workshop of Kultura Zrzuty [Chip-in Culture] in Teofilów, the sound recording of which is deposited in the archive of KwieKuliks’ Studio of Activities, Documentation and Propagation (PDDiU). They also took pictures then for their potential album cover. One of them appears before the concert footage. The band performs to date.

(MN)