MARC BEHRENSNEWSBIOMUSICARTWORKSTEXTBANDCAMPYOUTUBECONTACT
2008
Unit
sound installation
(Farewell to Post-Colonialism. The Third Guangzhou Triennial, Time Museum/Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China)

Unit consists of five pairs of floor-mounted frame drums and hanging loudspeakers. The frame drum resonates, depending on the sound pressure level from the speaker, which hovers a few centimeters above it, suspended from the ceiling. There are four sound elements used in the composition for this setup:
Stones — recordings of various actions performed with stones: mostly stoning, but also grinding. The sudden, abrupt sounds of falling and crashing stones contrast the installation’s harmonious visual composition.
Crickets — various generations of edits from a single recording of crickets encountered at an elevation of ca. 2600 meters on a mountain road out of Tongren/Repkong. These insects emitted rather loud clicking sounds that seemed to come from the tarmac. Instead, when finally stepping away from the road and into the grass and small shrubs, I noticed the crickets made sounds only in flight, and that previously I was actually listening to the reflections of their clicking, which is why it took me a while to locate them. They were much bigger than imagined, probably camel crickets.
Cymbals — a pair of 20 cm rol mo cymbals bought in Huangzhong/Tsongkha, played with bare hands until pain ensues, without making the cymbals touch.
Drums — the frame drums built for the installation resonate with some of the sounds projected onto them (mainly the stone sounds with short attacks) in a mix of acousmatic and instrumental sound sources.

The 5-channel audio composition for the installation consists of 57 figures of varying duration, which would be automatically selected by an aleatoric script on a multichannel DVD that feeds the audio into the installation.

Materials: PVC drum skins, aluminium, stainless steel, loudspeakers, amplifiers, audio player
Dimensions: variable, approx. 6.00 x 3.00 meters x ceiling height

Acknowledgements: Guo Xiaoyan, Emma Guo, Goethe-Institut China, in particular Qiao Cui, Egon Kurth, Günter Matten and Bernhard Göbel (hardware).

In 2012 the CD Unit with a recording of the installation and the book Cutting Qinghai, illustrating the project and travel to the Chinese Qinghai province were released by the label and/OAR.
 



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