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Navid Navab

Aquaphoneia
Aquaphoneia is an alchemical installation centred around the poiesis of time and transmutation of voice into matter. A large horn floating mid space echoes the ghosts of Edison, Bell, and Berliner’s machines. But unlike early recording, herding sound energy to etch pressure patterns in solid matter, this odd assemblage transmutes voice into water and water into air. Disembodied voices abandon their sources to cross the event horizon of the horn. Estranged, the schizo-phone falls into the narrow depths of the bell, squeezed into spatiotemporal infinity, calcinated, liquified and released: The aqueous voice then flows into three alchemical chambers where inner time is surrendered to the tempi of matter: unbound, yet lucid and sound.

Universal Everything

Primordial
Primordial is a generative artwork made from code, depicting a stylised, coloured take on cellular microscopic life. The flow of organisms projected onto the floor are audio responsive, moving and growing to the pulse of sound. These creatures navigate the space in their own freeform way, naturally encouraging viewers to flow into the exhibition.

Hovver

Liminal Scope
Liminal Scope is an immersive light and sound installation, in which three rings frame the transit of light through space. The audiovisual score enmeshes harmonic frequencies, rhythmic motion,
and gradients of color, orchestrating a narrative which navigates tension and release. Our form of reality is mutually constructed by our perceptions along with their limitations. The installation’s rings form an aperture that focuses and reveals a spatial quality of light, which usually remains unseen. Liminal Scope is a meditation on these perceptual limitations as they
relate to our shared and individual perspectives on reality.

Christoph De Boeck

Staalhemel

The intimate topography of the brain is laid out across a grid of 80 steel ceiling tiles as a spatialized form of tapping. The visitor can experience the dynamics of his cognitive self by fitting a wireless EEG interface on his head, that allows him to walk under the acoustic representation of his own brain waves.The accumulating resonances of impacted steel sheets generates penetrating overtones. The spatial distribution of impact and the overlapping of reverberations create a very physical soundspace to house an intangible stream of consciousness.‘Staalhemel’ (‘steel sky’, 2009) articulates the contradictory relationship we entertain with our own nervous system. Neurological feedback makes that the cognitive focus is repeatedly interrupted by the representation of this focus. Concentrated thinking attempts to portray itself in a space that is reshaped by thinking itself nearly every split second.

Robin Baumgarten

line-wobbler
file 2019
‘Line Wobbler’ is a one-dimensional dungeon crawler with a custom controller made out of a steel spring and a five-metre long LED strip display. The entire game runs on an Arduino, with sound, particle effects and 120+fps. ‘Line Wobbler’ is an award-winning experiment in minimalism in game design, making use of novel input mechanics, retro sound, and the incorporation of physical architectural space into the game. In the game, players navigate obstacles and fight enemies to reach the exit, in a series of increasingly difficult levels. Movement is controlled by bending the Wobble controller forward and back, while enemies are attacked by flicking the spring at them. Obstacles such as lava fields, conveyor belts and slopes challenge the navigation skills of the player.

DANA CASPERSEN, WILLIAM FORSYTHE AND JOEL RYAN

White Bouncy Castle
The visitor’s unavoidable inclusion in the idiosyncratic kinetics of Dana Caspersen and William Forsythe’s «White Bouncy Castle» creates a choreographic space where there are no spectators, only participants. The choreography that appears, led by Joel Ryan’s encompassing soundtrack, is the result of complete physical destabilisation and the resulting social absurdity. The inadvertant euphoria that results from the situation is infectious and, in some cases, addictive.

Zimoun

150 prepared dc-motors, 270kg wood, 210m string wire

The sounds of 150 mechanical seesaws striking the floor of a former church in Austria reverberate around its nave in this installation by Swiss artist Zimoun (+ movie).Named after the materials used in its creation, Zimoun’s latest installation is titled: 150 prepared dc-motors, 270kg wood, 210m string wire.The artist used the wood to build 150 simple seesaws, made from long batons that pivot vertically on short upright lengths.Orientated in different directions, these are scattered around the nave and transepts of Klangraum Krems – a Gothic church converted into an events space in the Austrian town of Krems an der Donau.Each seesaw incorporates a motor that powers a thin metal arm, which is attached to one end of the rocking wooden element by piece of wire.When the motor is activated the arm flicks back, pulling the string taught and causing the end of the wood to strike the ground.“Over a simple mechanical system the wooden laths are set in motion and randomly falling back to the floor,” said Zimoun.