10-Channel Audio composition and installation, 2015
“Mir kam keine Rede in den Sinn, die nur im mindesten etwas von dem Farbenglanz des innern Bildes abzuspiegeln schien.”
“No se me ocurría ningún dicho que pudiera reflejar ni siquiera una mínima parte del brillo y del color del imagen que veía en mi.“
“No se m’acudia cap expressió capaç de reflectir ni tan sols de la brillantor i el color de la imatge que veia dins meu.“
The piece especially created for the l’Antic Molí d’Oli d’Ulldecona, an old olive oil mill in Ulldecona, Spain/Catalonia). It is a musical composition for 10 loudspeakers and a text by the German romantic writer ETA Hoffmann (1776-1822), written in chalk on the floor of the exhibition space.
The musical piece is based on the two sounds that can define the village of Ulldecona: Trains passing by and birds singing. Field recordings of those sounds are combined with electronic sounds, a drum kit and a Violin. The composition follows a pattern of a-symmetric symmetry interweaving seemingly real spaces with imaginary ones: Every “real” sound used for this composition has its electronic counterpart; every motion direction is crossed. The only exceptions are the sounds of the drums – they remain un-mirrored and interrupt the flow of movements and jump in space.
The composition tries to adapt the piece to the space where it is to be heard. It plays with the distribution of sound in space, a dialogue between the sounds of the piece and the reality. The fact that the piece sounds next to the train tracks and there are birds chirping in the streets, blurs the lines between the “made composition” and the music that self-composed itself outside. As an installed musical piece its format differs from both, a concert and an album.
The text phrase of ETA Hoffmann is taken from the narration “Der Sandmann” (translated into Spanish as “El hombre de arena”, English “The Sandman”). In the narration, the protagonist – overtaken by recurring memories – enters into a state where his perceived reality and the “outside world” reach the same level of realty.
