photocredit: Virginia de Diaz

Roomination

Lite-Haus Galerie Berlin, coop. with Shahed Naji, 2019

5 sound channels: loudspeakers and transducers, neon tubes, 12 min loop, interactive.

Roomination is an interactive sound and light installation. Visitors become the performers in this piece. Inspired by ritualistic meditation, “Roomination” which is a mixture of “room” and “introspection” invites viewers to understand the repercussions of their actions in a space and time frame. On a material level, sound interacts with the room making the floor vibrate, inviting visitors -which are asked to take off their shoes before entering the installation- to lay down and feel the sound with their whole body. Small bells, located on a speaker facing upwards, resonate from the sonic vibrations of the speaker, producing a new layer of their own sounds.

Acoustic Ruin / Bruchstücke

Function.Anomy, Rathaus Galerie Reinickendorf, Berlin 2018

4 sound channels: transducers, sound loop.

Acoustic Ruin is a site-specific sound installation which erases the barrier between inside and outside of the architectonic space at the entry area of the city hall Reinickendorf through sound. The border between institutional and public space disappears sonically. Transducers make the glass of the windows vibrate, distributing sound in both directions of the walls, the windows speak. Spaces which otherwise are disconnected, connect via sound. The composition of this piece originates from fieldrecordings of the surrounding area and the inside of this building, which become an abstracted and atemporal texture changing the atmosphere and perception of the place.

Roomination

Tanzhalle, Wiesenburg Berlin, collab. with Shahed A. Naji, 2019

7 sound channels: subwoofers, bass shaker, loudspeakers; neon tubes, 12 min loop, interactive.

Roomination is an interactive sound and light installation. The visitor interacts through his movement in space with the room, reshaping its appearance by his presence. The atmospheric sound environment invites to ruminate on how our (here) physical actions influence environments.

Nest

Tsung Yeh AIR Cultural Center, Tainan (Taiwan) 2018

Collaboration with Georgi Tomov Georgiev. Bamboo structure covered by concrete and plants, diameter: 3m, 2 sound channels: 2 loudspeakers + amp, continuous loop.

Nest is a site-specific environmental artistic project realized in the Madou District of Tainan City, Taiwan. The result of our research during the residency lead to this site-specific sonic sculpture.The former factory complex, in which the piece is situated, is a monument to and an artifact of the industrialization process, which contributed to the current aural state of the Tainan area.The construction methods used to realize the structure mimic the architectural techniques unique to the area, providing a positive viewpoint to industrialization, reminding us that it could be a tool used towards a harmonious and environmentally beneficial outcome which respects nature. 

In cities, the deep background frequencies of nature are overlayed by many layers of high frequencies of electronic devices. Researches lead to the result that deep frequencies support plants growth, attract birds and are able to re-establich the human connection to nature. With our project we aim to give a possibility to restore the connection to our natural environment on a visual, sonic and environmental level.

The sculpture was inspired by the architectonic shape of a church’s dome, giving it unique acoustic properties. A deep frequent drone creates a constant hum, in which abstracted sounds of recordings of a big traditional taiwanese temple drum are interwoven.The site-specific project reminds people that positive environmental change is still possible and the only favorable development for our future would be to abandon our ignorant and disrespectful attitude towards nature. This sculpture will be covered by plants, whose growing process is enhaced by the sound frequencies used and also the tactile vibrations on the surface of the sculpture, on which the plants grow.

The artwork is a testament to the negative impact of rapid urbanization and allows visitors to visualize in an immediate way the influence civilization has on nature. The selected medium of work allows for an intuitive attainment of a large body of information, spanning several centuries, all synthesized to allow the easy transmission of these messages. It raises questions of humanity’s future. What would our planet look and sound like if we continue down the same road? This sculpture could be seen as an enduring monument, serving as a reminder to the visitors, of the impact and cost of civilizational advancement, proposing a positive outlook of sonic and environmental architecture which embraces nature.

Audioexcerpt of the installation (to be played over a system with subwoofer):

Video: https://vimeo.com/308662558

books

• Traces-Architectures_Projections, publication of the 2 years exhibition program at Bärenzwinger, Kommunale Galerien Berlin, Kerber Verlag 2019.

catalogs

• Madou Sugar Industry Art Triennial, catalog, Taiwan 2019.
• Dystopia Sound Art Festival, catalog by Errant Sound e.V., 2018.
• Space21 Sound Art Festival, catalog by Space21, 2018.

Dystopic Mirage

Meinblau, Dystopia Sound Art Festival, Berlin 2018

Collaboration with Peter Cusack. 6 sound channels: 5 loudspeakers + Subwoofer, 20 min loop.

Ani—the ancient city of 1001 churches—is located in Eastern Turkey on a plateau above the Akhurian river, the closed border between Turkey and Armenia. It is a site that looks back to the past and also refers to the impasse of Turkish and Armenian views of their shared history. Ani’s dramatic and violent history of success, decline and then destruction by bloody invasion and catastrophic earthquake seems to exemplify ideas of Dystopia. After its depopulation around 1600, neglected ruins remain in the empty mountain landscape. Today’s national flags flutter on opposite sides of the river ravine.

Such places invite reflections on the administration of space and the creation of territory. Do ideas of Dystopia help to understand real places or are they a distraction from other, more necessary insights? Perhaps they should only be applied generally. Ruins offer both a utopic and a dystopic vision of a past culture. Societies oscillate between utopic and dystopic states: remembering and imagining, progress and regress, construction and destruction. Our reflections were exposed in 2 texts which were exposed at the installation. My reflection concerned borders, territories and some abstract concepts which seemed related to dystopian realities for me. Thinking about Dystopia and relating it to our current world, I came to the conclusion that in real life we find no pure forms of Utopias or Dystopias, but mixed forms or Dysutopias. The installation was a composition of the sounds of the Turkish flag waving at the hilltop of the Ani citadel. Sounds from within its metal tube and atmospheric sounds outside, mixed with wind, were the most present sounds. The composition had more abstract and more realistic parts of sound, fading from one into the other using the spatial setup of sound sources in the room. At one point the sound arrives from a dislocated point above our heads. 

At the installation were placed two texts as handouts, one written by me and one by Peter Cusack, this is my version of the text in Pdf  dystopia_handout

Audio excerpt of the installation:

Metamorphosaic

Performing Arts Festival at Schiller Bibliothek Berlin 2018

Lightsources, Soundsystem with Subwoofer, Dancer

Metamorphoasic is an experiential sound and movement performance that blurs the line between performance and installation. It focuses on the re-imagining of a space as an abstracted version of reality. An audience enter a dark space as sounds begin to create vibrations throughout the room. Gradually they notice a body that moves in slow-motion, coming into and out of the light. Slowly things develop; movement begins to abstract, and light and sound fuse in a changing environment. An atmospheric environment is created, in which illusions of shifting time and form emerge in a symbiotic dialogue.

As an investigation into perception, into time and non-time, and into material and imagined memory, Metamorphosaic aims toward a re-evaluation of our mechanisms of experiencing and understanding the world on a physical, social and philosophical level. In a fast-paced world becoming increasingly overstimulated with a multitude of different inputs, questions of time (or non-time) seem ever more present.

What happens therefore when we enter a space in which everything appears to have momentarily stopped or slowed down, or in which the body present does not appear to follow the same laws of linear time, or in which darkness, light and sound engulf us into a feeling of unfamiliarity?

Metamorphosaic creates an atmosphere that invites the possibility of experiencing a body, a space, and an environment, other than how we might experience them in normal life; and an opportunity therein to question how we experience or perceive a body, or a space, or even reality itself. A mutual interest in the relationship between movement, sound, and space or architecture, as well as related philosophical discourses including theories of deceleration (“Entschleunigung”, see Byung Chul Han), and work by Cat Hope, Holge Schulze, and Jefta van Dinther, were the beginning of this movement and sound collaboration in progress.

Video documenting the piece: metamorphosaic2018

Foto by Trevor Lloyd

Grid

Bärenzwinger Berlin 2018

4 sound channels: 3 loudspeakers + 1 subwoofer, 3 lightsources. 30 min composed loop.

Grid is a site-specific sound-light installation at Bärenzwinger Berlin as part of the exhibition Grabenblicke, 2018. The grid is a central element in this site-specific piece, both visually and for the sound distribution in space. This installation uses architecture in various ways: as instrument, as sounding material, as a resonant body, as interface; as an abstract expressionist canvas or sculpture. Light comes through cracks, half open doors and metal bars, drawing a grid of light and shadows on the existing walls. For the first time the off-spaces of this building are integrated in an art installation with this piece. Sound and light cross architectonic barriers, hidden rooms are made hearable through sound, penetrating, and passing through architectural cracks, rooms and grids. Invisible rooms are made perceivable through sonic enlivenment. The location of the sound sources is sometimes hard to draw, as they are positioned invisible to the eye. A deep frequent room exciting drone intermixes with recordings while interacting with objects of the location, the place becomes the instrument.

photos by Kathrin Scheidt

Sonic Convexities

Sudhaus of the former Kindl Brewery Berlin 2018

15 sound channels: wearable loudspeakers, 3 performers. 25-35 min.

This performance explores the acoustics of a space in relation to movement. Performance for 3 performers with wearable loudspeakers systems. Expansion of the performance “soundbody” for another space. In this performance the dancers Britt Davis and Fergus Johnson took part. Sonic convexities was performed as part of the “Room of Eyes” event in the Sudhaus of the KINDL-Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst Berlin. 2018.