Stationen 1992

Installation with integrated microphones, various integrated speakers, and computer-controlled MIDI instruments.

Produced with the assistance of the Elektronisches Studio of the TU Berlin for the series Kunst in Parochial.
Presentation: Parochialkirche Berlin, July 1992.

The following description of Stationen was written for the installation's documentation catalogue.¹⁶ Apart from describing the installation itself, this somewhat longer text also gives an idea of the general aesthetic of my work, especially in relation to those installations concerned with the light gradated colouring of space and the integration of sound in specific architectures.)

"Stationen was composed for the north stairwell and the bell tower of Berlin's Parochial church. Because on my first visits to the church, I was struck by the beauty of its unornamented architecture and a certain timelessness about the space, it became an essential objective of the installation to acoustically enhance these areas without disturbing their existing characters. From an architectural and acoustical viewpoint (very reflective concave walls and the presence of strong acoustic focal points) the spaces also offered the possibility of creating a work within which the acts of listening to sound and experiencing architecture (through sound) could become one. With these goals in mind, relatively quiet, static sounds were composed to fuse with the space's architecture; loudspeakers were either hidden from view of the public or were unobtrusively integrated within the environment; temporal aspects of composition were minimized in order to give rise to a work which unfolded in space rather than in time."

Concerning the physical installation
"Five microphones, built into small protective shields, were installed outdoors on an open arch in the ruins of the church's bell tower. These microphones were placed to pick up noises from the nearby streets, firstly to be filtered through small speakers (built into similar protective shields and situated in certain areas of the stairwell), and secondly to be analysed by computer for the control of synthetic sounds."

"Indoors, on top of the lightly reproduced street noises, a vertically-organized sound colour was produced: an overtone-based chord consisting of fourteen pure sine tones played in the upper half of the space, mirrored by fourteen pure sine tones played in the lower half of the space. The use of various types of speakers in different levels of the stairwell aided in the vertical distribution of the tones — from low to high register — throughout the installation area. The chord was structured around the natural harmonics 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30."

"In the stairwell, speaker boxes were placed (out of sight) on four different levels. A large bass speaker was situated in the cellar directly under the staircase. Sounds from this speaker were reinforced by the reflective cavity of the stone cellar and resonated lightly throughout the entire stairwell from beneath the lower steps. A smaller full-range speaker, also playing low tones, was enclosed within the staircase of the first landing. Here, the deep wooden enclosure of the staircase acted both as a resonator for the tones produced, and as a filter for higher frequency components present in the loudspeaker sound. On each of the next two levels, speakers playing mid-range tones were placed behind locked doors which led into the stairwell. These heavy doors also filtered out high frequency components present in the loudspeaker sound, thereby contributing to the non-localisation of the sound source."

"In the bell tower room, full-range speakers were built into resonator boxes and placed on the floor at the extremities of the space. These resonators gave a warm acoustic quality to the tones, and (again) removed any high frequency components which might have aided in sound localisation. In this upper room, a secondary sound element consisting of a sustained but intermittent high frequency signal also was produced through four small wall-mounted speakers similar to those found in the stairwell."

"The overall dynamic range of the installation was adjusted to always retain the effect of a light, homogeneous spatial colouring which very gradually changed in register as one ascended the stairwell into the bell tower room. The dynamic levels and the harmonic contents of separate components of this sound colour also varied in real-time, with the aid of a computer, in relationship to the amplitudes and frequencies present in outdoor sounds. In addition, vertical sound levels were adjusted so that from various positions in the stairwell the entire overtone chord could be heard from a new perspective — that is to say, one could physically position oneself vertically within the chord."

"Due to the reflective nature of the architecture in both the stairwell and the bell tower room, sounds of the installation were extremely diffuse. In many areas of the stairwell, standing waves added locally-accentuated sound colours perceived while ascending and descending in the space. In the bell tower room, very strong acoustic focal points were encountered as one moved under the various arches of the ceiling. Through such accentuations of the space's acoustic properties, combined with the spatial rather than temporal organization of sounds, the installation created an environment in which sound often drew the listener's attention to architectural aspects of the space rather than solely to a specific musical content. The installation proposed that here, space itself become a musical instrument and architecture an acoustic event."

Stationen, Parochialkirche, Berlin. July 1992
Bell tower room with integrated
high-frequency speakers.
(Photo: G. Oteri)

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¹⁶ Robin Minard, in Stationen, op. cit. pp. 10-12