Sonotopia – The Resounding City

Anatol Bogendorfer, Peter Androsch (Hörstadt / AT)
Sonotopia Concert:

Sonotopia Installation:THU September 4-MON September 8, 2014, 11 AM - 9 PM
Bischofshof

“Sonotopia,” a featured event in The Resounding City series, is an acoustic exploration of the historic Bishop’s Residence on Herrengasse. But NOTE: “Sonotopia” doesn’t stage a production at this venue; the premises themselves are the attraction. That’s the concept of Hörstadt. Nothing is invented; the point is to pay attention to what’s already there: the city as tonal space.

Architecture Shapes Sound

This space results from human life in all its variants interacting with a real architectural situation, which has an enormous and occasionally subtle influence on a city’s acoustics. Architecture creates spaces and surfaces that form and reflect sound. This is precisely what Hörstadt, Linz’s lab for acoustics, space and society, enables the audience of “Sonotopia” to experience and become aware of.

The Hitchcock Principle

To accomplish this, Hörstadt’s Anatol Bogendorfer and Peter Androsch have recourse to a design principle used by Alfred Hitchcock. Just as the great British director’s film sets included surrealistically enlarged or scaled-down architecture and objects in order to heighten their on-screen impact, Hörstadt stylistically accentuates individual components of the urban soundscape in staging a Resounding City event.

Resounding Rainspouts

Rainspouts, sewer systems, windows and domes are boosted to musical instruments and orchestrated. Serving as the tonal foundation is the site’s own resonance and the individual acoustic bodies as well as information from the history of the Bischofshof as a place for hearing. “Sonotopia” is accompanied by auditory strolls through the surrounding neighborhood (Auditory Stroll I: Resounding History und Auditory Stroll II: Resounding City) and a workshop.