“Why can’t sounds be visible?
Would the feedback from ear to eye cause fatal oscillation?”
(Pauline Oliveros)
What is sound? What is this phenomenon that we can neither see nor touch, but can touch us?
The Belgian artist Els Viaene has been working for over 15 years with the medium of sound in large scale installations and compositions – the sound experience was always the end product. According to her perception, however, apparatuses, objects and technologies have always stood in the foreground – between her and the sound.
In Ways of seeing sound, she investigated sound at it’s source, approaching it as a physical phenomenon in the moment it is shaped: as vibration, wave, change in air pressure. She analyzed the opto-acoustic experiments collected by John Tyndall around 1876* and reconstructed in collaboration with the Ghent University Museum (GUM) many of the historical setups. Based on that, she developed a series of new experiments and methods to make sound visible and takes us on a journey of perception.
The exhibition for Liebig 12 is a Wunderkammer in which science and sound collide and the concepts of seeing and hearing blur.
a poetic investigation of sound as a physical phenomenon
Exhibition / Lecture-Performance by Els Viaene
Opening with performance: 3 February 2023 / 8PM* (booked out!)
Performance: 4 February 2023 / 8PM* (booked out!)
Exhibition: 5 – 19 February 2023 / 2 – 8pm
Liebig 12 / Liebigstraße 12 / 10247 Berlin / www.liebig12.net
* limited capacity – no later entry to performance
concept and realisation: Els Viaene
curator: Carsten Stabenow / tunedcity.net
technical assistance: Koen Daems
video electronics: Elias Heuninck
light design: Simon Siegmann
support: Torsten Oetken
photo: © Kobi Nel/Lydgalleriet
Thanks to Ghent University Museum and Roland Carchon, Danny Van de Steene, Dirk Eeckhaut
and Allegra Solitude / Liebig12.
Ways of Seeing Sound @ Liebig 12 was funded by initiative neue musik berlin e.V. and Flanders State of the Art.
