1985: I am sitting in a room, listening to a John Peel session, hearing a song called “Sehnsucht” by the German Noise/Industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten. In a very lo-fi radio broadcast, I hear Blixa Bargeld's voice, screeching; I hear noise, metal on metal, and other unidentifiable sounds. I experienced an immediate emotional response to this unfamiliar sonic environment. Essentially this emotional response is what drives my art making today—be it working with the idea of disruption and failure, or as of late, proceeding toward utilizing failure as part of a larger scheme—that of a cinematic sound poetry and sound narrative.
Sehnsucht, 0:32 excerpt
(Sehnsucht translates to longing or yearning.)
The idea of 'longing' shaped my path. The concept of 'search' as an artistic procedure is part of my body of work.
VISUAL ART AND SOUND
I completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design with a second major in Photography in 1993. In 1999 I graduated from The School of the Art Institute with a Master of Fine Arts in Time Arts with a focus on Sound. I understand the connection between design and sound composition to be an intriguing proposition: Design methodology can (under certain circumstances) be transferred to sound composition. However, the dialogue of what we see compared to what we hear is a different one. We hear something and most everyone will imagine something that may describe the scene or the sonic object. So how can a visual concept be transferred to sound: how to translate an idea, atmosphere, and mental image into a temporal sonic plane. This is something I have investigated in my Master Thesis — an 'expedition' into sonic layers, textures and complex patterns. The trilogy consists Akousma (or 11.000 Virgins), Chronotope (Time-Image) and Chroma (Lichtzwang).
Akousma (or 11.000 Virgins), 8:23 (complete version)
METHOD AND FAILURE
I recontexualize sonic fragments: There has been a lot of cutting and pasting, samples which are either appropriated or recorded. I am interested in the idea of failure and disruption pertaining to technology addressing herein aspects of the human condition and culture. Often it is an atmosphere that I wish to describe through sound, a momentary glimpse — not fixed in time but unfolding by means of (un)organized noise and expression.
My sound compositions are essentially made up of debris—a digital landscape of glitches, clicks and recognizable fragments reorganized into a form in which mistakes become aestheticized, no longer displaced pieces but fragments composed into artifice—a detritus of culture. The use of digital technology has had a great influence on the making of my work. The sound object is the consequence of experimenting with the medium: digital technology recontexualized. The fragments indeed are remnants of musicality thus suggesting emotions, spaces, musical ideas.
Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the rhizome and of becomings infused my ideas on sound and music. Especially the concept of the “body without organs” (A Thousand Plateaus) hints at the essence of my investigations into sound. In regard to my work, the “body without organs” is a system composed of non-hierarchical structures of sound objects (sonic fragments). The sound object evolves into a becoming-time and becoming-music (organized sound), a becoming-space and becoming-mood. The sound object reveals its essence in the consciousness of non-chronological time by revealing the world-as-it-is through becoming-instance. The moments of becomings are when time and percepts are compressed to bare essential: noise aligned to thought.
Out of this context I produced the “pre next pop” series and “Duplikat 00 Edition”. The focus of the music is not so much on the rhythm, but more on the sound quality of the pieces. The interruptions are part of a total soundscape. The work escapes categorization and sets a style of its own, beyond glitch, ambient, and electronic music.
ton2, 0:57 (excerpt, pre next pop)
post pop, 0:51 (excerpt, pre next pop)
ID, 0:48 (excerpt, Dupikat 00)
Gegenwart, 1:09 (excerpt, Dupikat 00)
A FEW WORDS ON COLLABORATION
In collaborating with artists working in film, animation, video and anstallation - it is essential for me to find ways to develop a sound piece that correlates to the atmosphere of the content. Here listen to a sound excerpt of a collaborative effort with Chicago-based composer Olivia Block. We exchanged sound material and applied further digital processing and/or cut and paste methods. Finally we both composed different 20 min pieces from the same material.
Pandora's Box (Split Vinyl Boxmedia Release 2001)
Section One, 3:25 (towards the beginning)
Section Two, 4:09 (towards the end of the piece)
The challenge in each project lies in the presumed conflict between image and sound (space and sound). Making the parts interrelate and yet create an antithesis. The idea of non-hierarchical structures is of essence. Listen to Lichton from the video “Lichtwelten,” a collaboration with Kim Collmer.
Soundtrack Lichton, 2:28 (excerpt
I have developed a sound narrative with a recurring theme based on the song “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Permanent Fragments consists of 10 Episodes which reveal a cinematic soundscape between radio play, music, and poetry. It again refers to the 'search' motif with the inherent concept of pathos: the lonesome cowgirl in search for the unknown. More on this topic in “Positionsbestimmungen an der Peripherie: Methodik des Scheiterns” (PDF).
Permanent Fragments: Episodes 1-10, 13:38