Floating Points in the OMV Klangpark




In a programmatic allusion to the intentions of Linz’s famed Klangwolke, the Ars Electronica Festival initiated the OMV Klangpark four years ago as the launch of an ongoing series of annual events.

Based on the idea of underscoring the connection between the stylistically formative processes and concepts of leading edge Digital Music and established, artistically “serious” music by showcasing the work of one of the “masterminds” and leading creative protagonists of advanced Sound Art, the Klangpark’s annual setting since its inception has been the space between the Brucknerhaus and the riverbank. This “stage”—a 160,000-Watt tonal space—is marked off by four loudspeaker towers that fill the Danube Park with sound throughout the Festival.

Michael Nyman was the “mastermind” of the first OMV Klangpark in 1999. This year, it’s KOAN music software: in a cooperative effort curated by Tim Didymus,13 “KOAN composers” have collaborated on the development of a Dark Symphony under Didymus’ direction.

At the 2003 OMV Klangpark, the methods of music generation and composition—as they are transported and extrapolated with historic ambitions by the Principles of Indeterminism project (see p. 338)—are distilled down to the point of code itself as it were in the form of four 12-hour real-time soundtracks.