Space – Radical Atoms

GLEISHALLE, A Concert Cycle

Vanessa Graf — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 08:38:03 +0000

“Imagine, a space starts to talk to you,

but not with words and strings of meaning

instead in changing states and moods (by sound),

you can sit, lay down or walk in it.”

The space is the instrument is the space.

Its specific idiosyncrasy, its tonal, vocal and acoustic qualities constitute the object of attention of this concert cycle.

A series of concerts of varying duration and staged at different times during the festival’s run engenders on site a tonal space that plays with visitors’ perception of space and time, and the emotional perceptibility of the space.

The Instrument / The Space

The spatial configuration of the Gleishalle makes it an extraordinary setting for sensory perceptions within the context of everyday experience. This indoor space is a former railroad freight car loading/unloading dock for the transshipment of letters and parcels. The form and materiality of the architecture follows its function (logistics operations). The space’s dimensions—more than 200 meters long, about 50 meters wide, less than 8 meters high—determine two of its fundamental auditory traits: a resonance time of approximately six seconds, and an audible topography.

The Cycle

In music, a cycle is a multi-part composition with a shared context of meaning. The parts normally represent variations on a theme.

The Gleishalle with its specific auditory qualities is the theme of this concert cycle.

The space’s specific quality is primarily the result of its unusual spatial proportions. Here, a sound (acoustic event) fades away in the width and length of the space and not in its height too, as we’re familiar with in comparably vast spaces such as cathedrals—for example, St. Mary’s (Mariendom) in Linz.

The Composition

The space’s extraordinary characteristics with respect to architecture and materiality will be interrelated to a loudspeaker system so as to bring about the development of a compositional language. This will create the possibility of organizing acoustic events in such a way that audience members can partake of various auditory experiences: spatial coloration, spatial density, spatial depth, spatial movements and spatial states, both stable and unstable.

Idea / Concept: Sam Auinger

Composed and performed by: Sam Auinger & Hannes Strobl aka tamtam

Including the compositional element of a tuning tube by: Bruce Odland & Sam Auinger aka O + A

Artistic support: Katrinem and Stefan Weissenberger

Technical support: Thomas Koch and Gerd Thaller

Orbital Perspective

katjani — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 16:11:37 +0000

On October 1, 2013, I left my dream job, the job I had worked my entire life to achieve, a job that took me to the depths of the ocean and to space. I left my career as a NASA astronaut for one compelling reason, to be able to share a very unique perspective our planet full time. I call this perspective, The Orbital Perspective. There usually are two ways to define the word perspective. It may refer to the rendering or interpretation of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional plane, or it may refer to an attitude toward something, a point of view. Both of these definitions come into play in The Orbital Perspective. Historically, for the most part, our perspective has been two-dimensional. Although we know that the world is not flat, a true perspective on a three-dimensional, interrelated reality is usually beyond our immediate awareness. But when we are able to zoom out to the orbital perspective we can see all the pieces of the puzzle, who has them, and what picture they paint for our global Society. From space we are given a broader perspective of the word home. From the orbital perspective home is not just where we were born, grew up or where our family lives—home is Earth. From space our circle of kinship expands beyond our immediate family to all who we share this beautiful fragile oasis called Earth. Everything that I’ve done since leaving NASA has been done with the goal of sharing a big picture, long-term perspective of our planet, a perspective that I believe can have profound positive effects on the trajectory of our society. I’ve written the book, The Orbital Perspective, I am working on a full-length feature documentary called Orbital and I took on the roll of Chief Pilot of World View Enterprises. Through World View I will be taking experiments and people to the edge of space in high-altitude balloons.
Another way that I’m working to share this perspective is through art. Through my art I strive to capture not just the visual of life in space but I also try to capture the emotion of the experience. Each piece that I create has profound meaning to me, and it is my hope that I can communicate that meaning to others. My art stems from a responsibility that I feel to share the experience of living and working in space with as many people as possible through every feasible channel.

Deep Space 8K: Orbits

katjani — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 12:55:55 +0000

The aesthetics of man-made objects in space, their appearance and especially their orbits are transformed into a minimal audiovisual performance, showing the poetic dance satellites and their trash perform while revolving around us. Seemingly chaotic paths mutate to amazing patterns of an almost organic nature—all of it due to pure physical necessity.

To calculate the positions of an artifact one needs the current time and the corresponding two-line element (TLE) set.

When Quadrature (DE) started working with global satellite data, their information was based on a website maintained by the US Air Force. Yet after some time, based on information from the Union of Concerned Scientists, we discovered that some objects were missing. Fortunately the data on classified satellites is generated by enthusiastic amateur astronomers observing the night skies.

Merging the two sources, balancing between artistic autonomy and the necessary scientific rigorosity, the performance is an aesthetic and intuitive experiment, revealing this new layer of human infrastructure.

Credits: the Quadrature collective are Sebastian Neitsch, Juliane Götz, Jan Bernstein

Sonic Wildness

Vanessa Graf — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 12:34:39 +0000

Steffen Armbruster, Antye Greie-Ripatti

Sonic interventions investigate notions of coexistence, communication and potential for interaction in hybrid ecology. The radical voice as the embodied human instrument and language as the base for code and algorithms lead to complex programming. What we call wild or radical is hard to find. Wildness is about listening. Deep Listening as well as introspective listening to an artificial soundscape derived from the “radical wild.” This project is intended to build a connection between sound and space. The installation takes advantage of the new acoustic possibilities of the usomo system. This headphone-based system tracks the position and rotation of each user precisely. With this information it is possible to place sounds at exact positions in real space with the usomo software. In this installation we create complex soundscapes that can be explored individually, that connect with the space the users are in and let them dive into the sonic wildness.

Concept and technical setup: Steffen Armbruster

Sound concept and sound production: Antye Greie-Ripatti

Spatial concept and design: Marc Osswald

Sound system: USOMO