Monika Weiss

Malleus- Medusa

2026

Duration: 22:14

Composer: Monika Weiss
Voice 1: Kelly Beekman, Mezzo Soprano
Voice 2: Mary Kate Charles
Voice 3: Disha Harjani
Voice 4: Monika Weiss
Voice Recording: Jeff Allen, Lucius Rawley
Sound Mastering: Paul Geluso, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center
Book: Malleus Maleficarum (1486) by Heinrich Kramer
Poem (Spoken): Aletheia (Girl in River Water) (2005) by Meena Alexander
Text (Written): Excerpts from Malleus (2026) by Monika Weiss

The 1574 Venice edition of Malleus Maleficarum was filmed at the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections, Washington University Libraries. Special thanks to Cassie Brand, Curator of Rare Books.

Aletheia (Girl in River Water) (2005) by Meena Alexander (1951–2018) was written after seeing the performance Lethe Room by Monika Weiss. The poem was first published in the exhibition catalogue Monika Weiss: Five Rivers (Lehman College Art Gallery / Les Editions Samuel Lallouz, Montreal, 2005) and subsequently in Quickly Changing River. Copyright © 2008 by Meena Alexander. Published 2008 by Northwestern University Press. All

rights reserved.

Malleus-Medusa (2026) is an experimental music/sound composition created in response to Malleus-Maleficarum, a 15th century legal and practical guide for inquisitors on methods of torture, prosecution, and execution of women, which became the standard legal text on women and witchcraft. Monika Weiss’ ecofeminist approach relates the oppression of women with the oppression of lands, cultures and the environment. The artist composed the music that includes vocal enactment of the poem Aletheia (Girl in River Water), 2005, by the late Meena Alexander (1951-2018), a world-renowned poet and Weiss’ friend.

Weiss creates a polyphonic and rhythmic sound environment, reframing Alexander’s poem as layered speech, often deconstructing the sentences into repetitive singular words which echo one another. The speaking voice is eventually overcome by a second voice, singing and lamenting without words. This dual vocal composition is further layered over rhythmic sounds that resemble explosions. The resulting sound strata creates a visceral and musical density akin to remnants of a battlefield.