Medusa (2025)
Sound installation (6 channels), wire object with coloured grid
This installation documents work from the simularr research project’s second interval in San Cesario di Lecce. I focused on a rooftop compartment, measuring 8 by 6 meters, which provided shelter and remarkable acoustics. During the blue hour on the first day, people gathered to listen to electroacoustic materials from my Shouldhalde album. One of the artists-researchers of this interval, Fulya Uçanok, noticed that inward-facing speakers offered precise high frequencies and stereo fields, while outward-facing ones created a more immersive experience by enveloping the space.
On the second day of our intensive retreat in San Cesario, I enhanced the setup with five small speakers and a central computer “node.” Wires would run across the lichen-strewn floor to the walls, where the small grey speakers where ‘sheltered’ in cavities of the walls. Nearby this place, I set up a room to record poetic texts about dreams, light, or personal processes. The texts and voices were contributed by Susanne Bosch, Nayarí Castillo, Franziska Hederer, Elena Redaelli, Fulya Uçanok. I recorded the texts in normal and whispered voice, ultimately sticking to the whispered recordings.
Towards of our research interval, I searched for a new form to replace the specific site, settling on a Medusa-shaped wire body, with now six of the small gray speakers embedded. When the piece was shown at Domenig Steinhaus in Carinthia, I added translucent coloured scales to the body. The sixth voice and text was provided by Andrea Bakketun, the artist-researcher that joined us in the third interval of simularr. At Steinhaus, the whispers that move around the sculptural object are accompanied by electroacoustic sounds again. The object is placed in the ‘wedge’ of the building, with a vinyl text on the glass window. This work invites exploration of sound, space, and collaborative creation.
Medusa (recording excerpt)