ORGANS WITHOUT BODY
AUG
2019
Organ Room (Orgelsaal) at the School of Music (HFM)
Mainz
Soundfield study for the Orgelsaal during the Gutenberg Sound Art Academy 2019 (GUSAC 2019) in Mainz.
This sound installation was conceived during the Gutenberg Sound Art Academy, GUSAC 2019. It was a rather spontaneous iteration within the continual work series CHANNELS (CHANNELS.var11). The title is a play on Deleuzes’ concept of “Body Without Organs”, and refers to the acousmatic listening situation here: There are two organs in the space, yet, no organists. Deleuze describes his term “Body Without Organs” as “a collection of potentials” and a focus on the overall shape/being, not the functions of the individual parts in a system. In a reverse interpretation Neumann focused his composing on the individual sounds, the speaker positions and the relationships between each speaker and the physical space of the Orgelsaal (organ room) without aiming for an overall cause. The loudspeakers function as independent agents in their respective positions. Sound materials travel through. The sum, of course, creates an overall soundfield in the room, yet, potentially quite different, depending on where one is listening from.
Soundfield for Neumann is the name for the four-dimensional listening space: depth, width, height, time. In soundfield composition sounds are projected into the architectural (three-dimensional) space in which the sounds resonate and reverberate. Through resonance and reverberation various characteristics of the physical space are being articulated and experienced from within. The physicality and materiality of sound itself is foregrounded and varied over time. Sound becomes the sculptural gestalt.
Consultation with Bernhard Leitner
Speaker layout::
Speaker 01
Speaker 02
Speaker 03
Speaker 04
Speaker 05
Speaker 06
Speaker 07
Speaker 08
This sound installation was conceived during the Gutenberg Sound Art Academy, GUSAC 2019. It was a rather spontaneous iteration within the continual work series CHANNELS (CHANNELS.var11). The title is a play on Deleuzes’ concept of “Body Without Organs”, and refers to the acousmatic listening situation here: There are two organs in the space, yet, no organists. Deleuze describes his term “Body Without Organs” as “a collection of potentials” and a focus on the overall shape/being, not the functions of the individual parts in a system. In a reverse interpretation Neumann focused his composing on the individual sounds, the speaker positions and the relationships between each speaker and the physical space of the Orgelsaal (organ room) without aiming for an overall cause. The loudspeakers function as independent agents in their respective positions. Sound materials travel through. The sum, of course, creates an overall soundfield in the room, yet, potentially quite different, depending on where one is listening from.
Soundfield for Neumann is the name for the four-dimensional listening space: depth, width, height, time. In soundfield composition sounds are projected into the architectural (three-dimensional) space in which the sounds resonate and reverberate. Through resonance and reverberation various characteristics of the physical space are being articulated and experienced from within. The physicality and materiality of sound itself is foregrounded and varied over time. Sound becomes the sculptural gestalt.
Consultation with Bernhard Leitner
Speaker layout::
Speaker 01
Speaker 02
Speaker 03
Speaker 04
Speaker 05
Speaker 06
Speaker 07
Speaker 08