Bewegungen is a 54-channel loudspeaker installation that creates acoustic movement through space (and, of course, time).
When the on-wall loudspeakers turn electronic impulses into sound, they generate simple clicks in specific spatial and temporal constellations. Depending on the distance from one click to another (spatial and temporal), these clicks form aesthetic acoustic patterns and sequences that develop into musical movements.
The installation has two important aspects that deserve further explanation – the composition of positions and the moldability of chaos.
Composition of Positions:
Inspired by Bernhard Leitner’s Tonlinien concept, Bewegungen is not only an accentuation of architecture or a creation of acoustic objects; it enriches sonorous objects with a musical perspective. Here, architecture and objects form a physical basis for musical events, which are classically represented by wavelength and frequency.
According to John Cage, sounds or musical compositions are arrangements of timbres, pitches, volumes, and durations, which are put into relation with one another. In this project, I replaced pitches with positions in space or along objects, creating a composition of positions. Musical changes occur not in the spectral domain, but in space – not in frequencies, but along objects and architecture.
Moldability of Chaos: The composition is a play of random walks, which determine the rhythms and positions of the clicks. The loudspeakers are numbered consecutively from 1 to 54, and by changing the step size of the random walks from one click to another, the system varies the behaviour of the movement. On the one hand, the work explores finding aesthetic forms within constrained chaotic signals (random walks); on the other hand, it examines the boundary between overwhelming our auditory perception and maintaining the ability to clearly recognise acoustic events in space.
The first aspect becomes clear when the spatial range from click to click remains small. Our perception can process these small changes in space, allowing us to recognise patterns.
We hear the second aspect when the system plays with large spatial changes and very short temporal intervals between clicks. These time intervals can be so brief that their frequency reaches the audible range, creating clouds of noise we can no longer locate in space.
Bewegungen is a fixed installation at Echoraum in Vienna and can be experienced during all events.
JAKOB SCHAUER 