spaces, objects, processes (selection)
hidden movables
Video by Lisa Hoffmann
At my residency at the l’escaut architecture collective Brussels in March 2025 I gathered an ensemble of found objects and arranged them in the old warehouse floor. Every object was retrieved from the basement of l’escaut, where I discovered a plethora of hidden sculptures that have been ensembled there over the time people have been working and organizing events in l’escaut. It turned out the place was really a historical archive for items and objects of all kinds. Everyday objects, like lamp shapes, or pieces of styrofoam, but also ropes, tubes and a clay pipe, or metal sheets and sticks with all sorts of shapes and hidden features that were lying dormant in the old workshop basement.
The structures of an architectural intervention by artists Olivia Lennon and Jan van Schaik built the back bone for the arrangement of this ensemble. Their intervention was mirroring the structure of the old warehouse and my objective was to once more mirror their structures within my sound composition.
Different algorithmic entities were programmed to vibrate the found objects with the help of bodyshakers (transducers). With the aim to create a generative composition, based on the resonant behavior of each object. The algorithmic impulses, waveforms and gestures were wandering between the objects, creating patterns and networks of erratic activity and sound, echoing in the spaces of l’escaut. By algorithmically generating those movements and behaviors the hidden sounds of objects were articulated. A weird and jolly song of agency was enfolding.
The word play hidden movables aims at the fact that we sometimes forget the history and production of the goods around us, as well as the meaning and value of objects. How strange their status and ontology as property sometimes resonates with our actions. While sometimes it seems they have a life of their own…
The piece was following an invitation by Olivia Lennon and Jan van Schaik to reflect on their work, and kindly supported by Olivier Bastin and the Goethe Institute Europe.
Dwelling
Dwelling, 2018, Weimar
A generative electro acoustic sound environment in an old underground ice cellar in Weimar.
Different generative sound processes are projected via six Loudspeakers into the aisles of the abandoned cellar. The arrangement of the speakers and the programming of the panning through space is dynamically exploring the chambers and its acoustic properties. The programming is composed in a way that different sound Gestalt’s are moving with changing patterns through the rooms. Each movement and shape of the sounds is created in real-time with generative processes in the Supercollider programming language.
A microphone is recording snippets of the soundscape, changing it creatively and feeding the results back into it. People were invited to wander through the space with scant light for orientation, so that they can follow the trajectory of the sounds.
more live recordings here
Staircase
at the group exhibition ‘The Pacific Wall’ at TOP e.v. Berlin, 2017
The iron staircase to the basement of the exhibition space is used as a resonant live compositing tool. A computer algorithm is generating variations of the sounds the interaction with the stair is producing. Ideally a dialogue between the generative algorithm the player and the stair is starting to take shape.
Singing Ossicle
Singing Ossicle, 2018, at ‘Bach Advent’ Arnstadt (Ger)
A computer process is generating high frequency tones that are super-imposing. The sounds are distributed and refracted through three adjacent rooms, in an old hospital in Arnstadt, Thuringia. Only two speakers at each side of the spaces are projecting the sound. Phase shifting and beating occurs, by the always slightly changing frequencies of the sawtooth
waves that are emitted. According to these frequencies and shifts, and one’s location and movement in the spaces, different patterns and acoustic experiences arise. The composition plays with the space and our perceptual faculties of sound.
Sometimes it feels almost like something is slightly touching our eardrums. The smallest movements of our heads results in a totally different impression of the sound. While the source of the sounds remains absolutely disconnected from what we hear. Ossicles or auditory ossicles usually refer to the three small ‘hearing bones’ (ossicula auditus) in the middle ear. They transmit sounds mechanically to the cochlea in the inner ear and are crucial for our sound perception.
Nische
Nische, at the exhibition ‘niche construction’ Bauhaus University Weimar 2017
Our ateliers in the former office spaces Weimar were turned into exhibition spaces for the annual exhibition ‘summaery’ of the Bauhaus University Weimar. For that occasion I emptied my room and started transporting soil from the near by Ilm Park with a wheel barrow and buckets, to fill it in a second story office space.
A very nice ambient ensued the following days. People were invited to traverse the ground or sit and dig in the soil. At some point later at night two poets did show up for a spontaneous reading. People were filling the room and sitting on the soil.
TWO, 2016, with Saman Moeinsadat
TWO, is a generative sound installation realised 2016 together with Saman Moeinsadat at the Studio for Electroacoustic Music in Weimar (SeaM).It was shown at the annual concert of SeaM. Two rectangular metal plates are hanging top down. Both are endowed with a transducer and several contact mics. A semi-aleatoric computer process is gradually changing the amplitude of the mic inputs and outputs. The feedback that is produced is displayed on the other plate and vice versa, based on the algorithmic process.
EACH OTHER
2016, with Rama Bielewski
Demonstration at Bauhaus University Weimar. Video by Francis Kamprath
Soundperformance/Intervention with Rama Bielewski performed at Transmediale at Haus der
Kulturen der Welt in Berlin in 2016.
The INTERFACE is a conceptual sound performance tool set that is using materials and objects of the interior or environment to create a feedback loop. We connect ourselves to a computer process that is closing the feedback between transducers and contact mics that are impromptu attached to objects and surfaces in our environment.When we touch each other and close the electrical circuit the feedback goes off. While connecting us to more people between us, the moment of touching will change the
feedback in unforeseen ways.
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