farben innsbruck (2003)

26.06. – 15.10.2003


Farben Innsbruck [soundinstallation] Kunstpavillion / Innsbruck (A)

Farben / Colours is a sound installation in public space.
It creates a poetic soundscape which plays with how visitors experience time and space.
Space accelerates and decelerates, lightens and darkens. With the aid of sensors, visitors’
movements become the parameter for the installation’s activity.

The starting point is public space with its sounds and noises in its architectural, social,
functional and rhythmic structures. The musical language of the composition evolves out of
these colours (characteristics), as do the sound material and compositional strategy which
continually re-engage in dialogue with the acoustic events at the site. Sound material is
recorded here while pre-produced segments are adjusted to it. The composition comes
together within this concrete space.

The installation Farben (colors) is a subtle interplay with the phenomena of the world
around us on the level of sensory experience. Its starting point is public space with its
sounds and noises, its architectonic, social, functional and rhythmic structures. These
are the “Farben”– the characteristics from which Sam Auinger and Hannes Strobl develop the
language of their composition for concrete space.

Ambient acoustic events and musical sequences recorded on site serve as the sound material.
They determine the composition’s spatial form and temporal course. The strategy of the
installation is to conduct a constant dialogue between reality and imagination and to
facilitate open interaction between the “outer” world and the world of “inner” images and
impressions. The sonic environment, which has very specific features and qualities in each
place, – it might be loud or quiet, light or dark, pulsing or fading, clear or diffuse – is
conceived of as an instrument.

Through direct contact, capturing the location’s moods and idiosyncrasies, and precise
analysis, its many variations are revealed. Farben transforms the city’s pulse, the “breath”
of the place, into a poetic and musical space that foregrounds sensory perception. The
“aesthetic” space that is generated, “intoned” through intuition, emotion and bodily states,
becomes a natural part of the sonic ambience.

The place itself is brought into relationship with the “feeling of being present”. The city,
its history, architectural development, social functioning and its ensuing “pronouncements”
are brought into focus as a part of ourselves. The “Farben”, the colors of our surroundings,
are not just abstract signs and signals that aid in orientation, nor a system to which we
would want to unconsciously submit. Colors, like the installation by Sam Auinger and Hannes
Strobl, have a broad spectrum and are linked to a complex perceptual interplay, to the light
that makes them appear and disappear. (Melanie Uerlings)

composed by tamtam ©
installation-setup: Gerd Thaller
installation-electronik: Gerald Schalek
curator: Lucas Drexel