Movements/Bewegungen is a 54-channel loudspeaker installation, which creates acoustic movement through space (and time of course).
When the on-wall loudspeakers turn electronic impulses into sound, they generate simple clicks in specific spacial and temporal constellations. Depending on the distance from one click to another (special and temporal), it creates aesthetical acoustic forms and runs, that form musical movements.
The installation has two important aspects, that deserve further explanation – the “composition of positions” and the “moldability of chaos”.
Composition of Position: Inspired by Bernhard Leitner “Tonlinien” concept Bewegungen in 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 happening, which is classically represented by wavelength and frequencies.
According to John Cage, Sounds or musical compositions are arrangements of timbers, pitches, volumes and durations, which are put into relation to each other. In this project I replaced pitches with position in space or along objects and created composition of positions. Musical changes do not happen spectral, but in space. Not in frequencies, but along objects and architecture.
Moldability of chaos: The composition is a play of random walks, which determine 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 movements behaviour. On the on hand the play deals with finding aesthetic forms in confining chaotic signals (random walks), and on the other hand with the border between overflowing our auditory perception and the ability to clearly recognise acoustic happening in space.
The first aspect comes clear when the special ranges from click to click stay small. Our perception can deal with this small changes in space and we recognise forms.
We hear the second aspect when the System plays with big ranges for special changes and very short ranges for time (delay between clicks). The temporal distances can be so short, that their frequency reaches an audible range and the system creates clouds of noise we cannot locate any more.
Movements/Bewegungen ist a fixed installation at echoraum in Vienna and can be visited during all events.
JAKOB SCHAUER 