ROOM 020801

room- sound installation / 24:00 min sound-loop, room made of black fabric, black carpet, heater with automatic program switch, stereo sound on 4 speakers outside of the black cubicle / 2008

“In the series ´ROOMs´ I initially just wanted to create a neutral listening situation – an acoustic vacuum in which every sound can be heard as what it really is. With all too many disturbances around us the sounds always seem to escape our attention. In the artificially created situations, I was hoping to encounter an indirect confrontation with sounds and a direct contact with ones memory images and associations. Because most of the time sounds are just not like John Cage wanted them to be: pure and without an associated memory connected to them. In fact they are quite the opposite and only exist for the listener by linking them to an image, a feeling or a certain memory.
When I first thought of ´ROOMs´ I wasn´t looking for one of those super quiet rooms, I was just searching for an environment that let´s you listen, a room that cancels out all other informations except for the sound, a safe place one would like to hide in without feeling claustrophobic.

´ROOM 020801´ marks the beginning of this series. This room was created in the most empty possible way. There is nothing left which connects it to a room and that lets the visitor measure its size. The audience is located in a black nothingness – infinitely large or suffocating small – it is not clear and depends on the observer. Apart from the blackness and the visual emptiness, there is only a single orange light that comes from a heater. Due to the automatic program switch which turns the light and heat on an off this orientation point constantly vanishes in the darkness confusing and deceiving the eyes.
Inside and around the room is a deep vibrating sound, which constantly moves and slowly changes. The drone-like 24 minutes composition of recordings of vibrations from the interior of an airplane, a synthesizer and a saxophone reinforce either the infinity or the narrowness of the room. The effect of this place is difficult to describe and never the same depending on ones daily mood.
Without the clear visual information the visitor let´s the eyes rest and gives in to the warmth of the room, the soft floor and the deep drone and begins to listen. What one hears is directly associated with several free memories and experiences which can lead to a trance-like state of mind.”