' ! ' Sound sculpture (2009)

Steel and plexiglas tank.
Coloured fluid. Loudspeaker.
Pneumatic technology. Light.
MAX/MSP-programming.
160cm x 160cm x 60cm.

What compromises do we make when we try to interpret the world by the ambiguous information we receive from our senses?
The sound sculpture ' ! ' combines physical experience with an intermodal illusion. The exploration of the phenomenology of the senses culminates in the investigation of illusions, this raises the issue of the fallibility of the senses. As we seek consistency in the perceived world we reduce it to a fragment, which appears coherent when related to our life experience. Technological advances offer us ever greater reason to distrust our senses, though.
A loudspeaker hanging above plays a shot. The sub- bass punch seems to trigger an 'eruption' in the water tank standing below, which is filled with black liquid. The liquid gets punched down, then erupts in the form of a round wave, which disintegrates and splashes in all directions. Over the duration of the presentation a black speckled image thus forms on the initially clean, white floor.
Because of the temporal and spatial conjunction of the two independent events we interpret the heard and the seen as cause and effect. Synaesthetic perception enables the experience of the illusion. In addition, a vertical reference is given by the positions of the loudspeaker and the tank. In the study of poetics, fall and impact are often used as metaphors for human psychology. Within its abstract gestures and styles the formation process of the black picture on white background arises as a sculptural painting in the manner of Action-Painting.

EXHIBITIONS:
TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY (Amsterdam, NL), March/April 2010
ESEMPLASTICISM. THE TRUTH IS A COMPROMISE (Berlin, DE), Jan./Febr. 2010
GENERAL PUBLIC (Berlin, DE), Sept. 2009
BIORAMA PROJEKT (Joachimsthal, DE), Sept. 2009
HKW (Berlin, DE), Aug. 2009