SPACE/LISTENING

The sound installations "On the gradual fabrication of buildings while listening" explore relationships of sound - space - architecture in architecturally and acoustically special buildings. The analysis and examination of different concepts of space, the "symbolic space" (the "spirit" and the history of space), the "mathematical - geometric space" (the proportions of space, representable by the spatial dimensions of height, width and length) and the "physical - acoustic space" can be found transformed in the sound installation. The exploration of the sound character of the room, its distinctiveness, perceptible for example in its reverberation behavior or in the inherent resonances of the room, the characteristic accentuations and attenuations in the frequency spectrum, stands at the beginning. For this purpose, the acoustic properties of the room are measured. This acoustic analysis, "the acoustic fingerprint", becomes the basis and starting point for the sound installation, after which suitable historical instruments from the period in which the buildings were built are selected for recording in the studio. In the work in the studio and later directly on site, the recordings of the acoustic instruments, subjected to minimal electronic interventions, are filtered, tuned to the space and mixed. The sound material and dynamics are used structurally and not symbolically. The loudspeakers are precisely positioned, the dynamics of the sound installation are mostly quiet to very quiet and always move at the perceptual limit, the sounds are often more perceptible as a presence in the space than as musical manifestations. Through long sounding frequency bands and short impulse-like sounds, the space is made to sound as an instrument. The incommensurable durations of the individual tracks create a constantly changing, never-repeating sound continuum. When walking through the installation space, eye and ear impressions merge into a differentiated whole, abstract (thinking) spaces are reflected in the concrete real space. With the movement in the installation space, the listener - viewer creates his version of the sound installation in his own time - space.