INTERFERENCE – CONCERT AT EXHIBITION OPENING
Composed and performed by Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen. Installation sound composed by Husvik-Olaussen.
The work was developed as part of, and in dialogue with, the Interference installation and score.
Video: David Alræk. Please watch the video in full screen and with good headphones.
INTERFERENCE
A photographic interpretation by David Alræk.
Please watch the video in full screen and with good headphones.
INTERFERENCE – POETIC SCORE
Text by Janne-Camilla Lyster, graphic interpretation by Ane Thon Knutsen.
The work was developed as part of, and in dialogue with, the Interference installation and concert.
Photo: Morten Halfstad Forsberg
PHOTO DOCUMENTATION
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Sculptural sound installation comprising 17 glass panels prepared with dry colour pigment and plaster, 17 transducer speakers, 20 min. sound composition.
Interference
I
The action of interfering or the process of being interfered with.
(...)
II
The combination of two or more electromagnetic waveforms to form a resultant wave in which the displacement is either reinforced or cancelled.1
A meeting, a change of paths.
A polyphony of voices, creating a New.
New patterns, new coexistences, new forms.
Something obvious, something fragile.
Something barely noticeable.
I am interested in this micro perspective, this is where offset happens.
This is where we ought to listen.
An assemblage of soft forces, barely visible dissonances.
A resonance of coexistence.
A growth.
Interference occurs when two or more waves appear in the same location and create a new wave pattern. Interference between sound waves with almost the same frequency generates a third tone to the listener, a phenomenon known as a beat.2 Interference also refers to an interfering action, something that mixes with, and interrupts, a meeting between multiple components, a displacement, a polyphony of voices which together form a new co-existence.
The installation Interference takes as its starting point the concept of interference and the propensity of the human sensory system to perceive beats as a phenomenon, method and artistic theme. The work was composed polyrhythmically across an extended spectrum of voices of 17 interfering glass panels, plaster and colour pigment, female voice, percussion and a score printed on a letterpress. The work seeks to implement interference in the borderland between materiality and human senses and to create room for reflection, in which a displaced perception of physical autonomy can occur.
The soundscape sent to the glass panels is emitted by Chinese singing bowls made from crystal, sine tones and soprano. The sound of the glass panels produces a dialogue between the audio material transmitted to the transducers and the inherent resonance and flexibility of the glass. The main part of the composition was therefore produced during a preliminary project within the completed installation, rather than in a traditional sound studio. The composition, which works explicitly with interfering sounds, is mixed through 17 different channels, one for each glass panel. Thus, it is within the material itself, but also between the glass panels in the room, that the sounds meet and interference is created. The positioning of the audience and the direction of their aural attention also determine how the composition weaves together and interferes. Each listening is therefore unique.
The glass panels come in two different sizes derived from the proportions of the human body: nine small panels relating to the heart and head and eight larger panels relating to the torso. When you walk between the panels or turn directly towards a panel, the feeling of the vibrating sound becomes omnipresent, it exists not merely within the glass panel itself but flows into the room and the body. Standing inside this soundscape has both a physical and a mental impact.
The large glass panels have been prepared with circular ornaments reminiscent of Hilma af Klimt’s paintings3 but have been made from thick layers of dry colour pigment and plaster. The ornaments dampen the vibrations in different ways and therefore create micro-differences in the sound, but they primarily have an effect on how we perceive the sound, the temperature, the weight, based on the visual impression and the material presence. The ornaments also highlight the overlaps, or beats, between the panels as they turn and continually create new calibrations of depth, density, opacity, transparency. The basic rectangular shapes of the glass panels slowly but surely morph into a kaleidoscope which challenges our perceptions of fixed shapes.
I invited three artists to join me in developing the project: Janne-Camilla Lyster, Ane Thon Knutsen and Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen. I wanted to create two adjacent works within a conceptual frame: one poetic score and one concert. The works themselves should be independent of each other but informed by and informative for each other and my work on the installation. Thus, the dialogue between the score and the installation is reciprocal, with the score informing my work on the materials, and the materials informing Janne-Camilla Lyster and Ane Thon Knutsen as they worked on the score. Similarly, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen produced a composition for percussion and voice which is inextricably linked to the sound, materiality and space that exist in the installation and the score. After an initial dialogue about the conceptual framework followed by continued sharing of pictures, inspiration and experiences during the process, the artists were free to create their own work. These works are therefore a constituent part of Interference. They also constitute part of my doctoral thesis in their role as responses and reflections, although copyright belongs to the artists. In combination, interfering dialogues emerge between these works (installation/score/concert) which we could never have been envisaged or captured by more conventional forms of collaboration.
During the Interference exhibition at Lydgalleriet in Bergen I also invited the film-maker David Alræk to create a photographic interpretation of the work. I deliberately refer to it as an interpretation, because I asked him to make a film describing his perception of the work rather than a minutely detailed documentation of the work. As you can see, the film really does convey a personal experience of the work. Perhaps this is the only way to document a work which emphatically places itself in the subjective sphere.