Hörraum: Atmosphären

Prize-winnner in the ZKM soundscape composition competition. Presented in the Hörraum at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, May 8-19, 2013 within the umbrella exhibition event: Kultur:Stadt.

ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie

I began this piece while working in a remote part of Australia.  I was making field recordings at a salt lake during the worst drought in living memory.  I thought the salt-encrusted surface of the dry lake made a fantastic sound: scratchy and hard, yet hollow, too.  So I returned there later with a pair of dancers whom I asked to investigate the salt.  Through performance, the dancers bring unique rhythmic and percussive qualities to the work and create a rich sonic impression of the landscape.  Back in the studio, I layered these sounds of the dancers’ movements on and into the salt, much as the salt is deposited over time.  I wanted also in this piece to capture the desolate quiet of this place, its stillness, the incredible heat beating down, bright light, and the dry and brittle texture of the land.