Sophia Barthelmes - ein reim & Alexander Rudolfi - Willkommen im Bauch der Maschine
The authors Sophia Barthelmes and Alexander Rudolfi read from their publications, which were recently published in the “Rohstoff” series by Matthes and Seitz Berlin.
“ein reim” by Sophia Barthelmes (2025) investigates the property of rhyme in small language units, words, morphemes, letters and their fractions: twos to be similar and different at the same time; and use these language units or twonits to de- and recompose connections, memory, identity(s). Does child rhyme with mother? What is a two?
The author reads from her long poem. Voice and performance artist Alexey Kokhanov, who has written compositions for some units of the long poem, takes up individual words, letters, lines and pairs of lines sonically with score, improvisation and composition. The text is made visually available as a surtitle.
The plane rolls in, starts and accelerates to take off, but the narrator's thoughts in Alexander Rudolfis Debut novel “Willkommen im Bauch der Maschine (2025) push back. Back to the Italian island, where he read Gramsci's prison notebooks, observed current political events, met S. and took her on trips to villages notorious for their resilience, strongly connected to their tradition and partly uninhabitable due to the mining of heavy metals. This is how he gets to the rugged coast of his consciousness, times and words mix, and the question of when h lost control becomes increasingly important to him: only when he sat in the machine and put himself in the hands of an invisible pilot? Or even before that?
In a dense structure between lyrical reflection and prosaic experience, "Willkommen im Bauch der Maschine" tells of paranoid life in a technocratic reality — and of an attempt to find a way out.
Sophia Barthelmes
Sophia Barthelmes stages and writes. She studied cultural and literary studies, modern German literature, theatre direction and scenic writing. She works transdisciplinarily in the field of language in the performing, performative, visual and sound arts. In 2025, she received the Literature Promotion Prize from the City of Graz and is nominated for the Retzhofer Drama Prize. “ein reim” is her first book publication.
Alexey Kokhanov
Alexey Kokhanov is a vocalist and sound artist in Berlin and works at the interface of new music and sound performance. In his artistic practice, he explores aspects of voice — physiologically, psychologically, aesthetically and politically. In 2025, he completed a master's degree in spatial strategies at the Berlin-Weissensee Academy of Art.
Alexander Rudolfi
Alexander Rudolfi, born in 1987 in Freyung, studied social work, philosophy and literary writing in Munich, Hildesheim and Sassari. In 2022, he won the open mike competition. His work was supported, among other things, by a work grant from the State of Lower Saxony, a scholarship from the Minerva College and a residency grant from the Künstlerhäuser Worpswede. Texts have been published in various magazines (manuskripte, Transistor, die horen, etc.). In 2022, his book hyperlinklabyrinthe was published by Parasitenpresse.
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