SOUND ART INSTALLATIONS


HOERROOM BEIJING
A Psycho-Acoustic Sound Installation as Tactile Interface




The installation concept of >HoerRoom< is a “point and line to plane” sculpture, which uses points and lines to define an interactive plane that becomes a playable virtual space as visitors interact with it.  The installation makes space “variable” by using a series of newly developed interactive light and sound objects that when mounted on elastic cables function as “media pendulums”. To create the installation, a low-resolution matrix of points is mapped onto the space. Then, odd groups of vertically related points are selected and paired. These points are extended into lines using elastic cables upon which the media-pendulums are mounted at varying heights. Together the lines of the elastic cables mark the passive form of the space and when the cables are “plucked” into motion by the visitors, the lines swing back and fourth in harmonic motion, emit sound and light and delimit the active form of the space. A space within a space.


BOOK OF STAMPS
A travel guide between sonic landscapes from cities to urban cultures




The « Book of Stamps » is a travel guide between sonic landscapes from cities to urban cultures. The sheets of the book provide a “recording surface” and the ink stamps with their various patterns provide the ability to place sounds into the book. Together they act as an interactive tangible interface for a variety of time based musical tasks that form a collaborative composition by its users. There are two sets of ink stamps:  The stamps that look like natural things like trees, bushes or stone paths belong to the “Country Sounds” category; Those that look like buildings belong to the “City Sounds” category. By stamping a book page with a combination from both categories, a soundscape is created that will either tend to sound like a city, a country or an urban sonic mix of both. In this manner, sonic spaces are created for each of the pages and when the user turns the pages to other already stamped pages, it lends him or her the impression that they are actually “traveling” between places sonically. Behind the artwork lurks the “Physical Sequencer” software by Enrico Costanza, where interactive objects are "seen" by the computer through a web-cam based fiducial recognition.


THE CHURCH ACCORDING TO MCLUHAN
Interactive Public Art Installation



The Church According to McLuhan is a conglomeration of messages in the form of historical and modern icons. The most apparent and the one that is at the root of the design of the church is the stereotypical form of the television and the more common icon, the steps of the church, indicate an ascent in to enlightenment in the form of ultimate delusion. The television antenna itself is actually a new and more modern cross. It is ‘Cross of the Consumer’ and as expected it is in the form of a traditional TV antenna. Traditionally, the word "cross" indicates a balance of the mind and the body. The cross in its pre-Christian form had balanced parts. The Latin cross places more importance on mind over body with a vertical beam longer. The post-Latin cross, (TV-antenna) places more emphasis on the body by doubling the horizontal line. The icons are system that brings the electronic consumer the message of a “try-me-and-buy-me-world-belief” to the pinnacle of necessity: adjusting the TV antenna, or more theologically put: tuning into God as we now know it. (i.e. technology as religion.) By following the steeple from its base to its pinnacle, the viewer witnesses the metamorphoses of the television icon into the symbol for death (pre-Christian); this is seen as an ascent to the apparently real modern G.O.D. (Global Omnipresent Delusion). Versions of the church have been real and virtual. The “physical” version of the work is constructed out of wood and meshed with sorted materials that have a quality of “memory” i.e. blackboards, mirrors, phosphor panels. The virtual version of the work is created by using large prints of each of the elements of the church place on one or more walls within a light environment that modulates between black and incandescent light.


HOERROOM WIESBADEN
An electro-acoustic Sound Installation for Elastic Cabled Instruments




Each of the HörRoom projects uses the 'harmonic contents' of an existing exhibition space. The harmonics contents are singled out and then bound for exploration within an artistic presentation, which the audience is invited to experience directly. In the Kunsthaus in Wiesbaden, Germany, the HörRoom project was designed for visitors by having them interact with a "game instrument” that filled the entire space. Here, as the visitors make there way through the installation, the phenomena resonance and reflection gets conveyed poetically. Black elastic cords of different lengths are spanned through the space horizontally and vertically. These cables are used to mount various diverse instruments and a lighting system. Some instruments require two cables, as the instrument consists of two parts, i.e. beater and sound-maker. The lighting system consists of a small mirror ball, with a high-powered LED light illuminating it. When the light system by the vibrations of the cable is set into motion, the system sends showers of light fragments through out the room. The visitors themselves experience the same space as a listening room, by making their own way through the installation, and make it a collaborative experience by plucking one or the other cable to set appropriate instruments into vibration which combines into a group artwork.