Szczecin Concrète (2015)
sound installation for 8.1 loudspeakers
Szczecin Concrète is an interactive multi-channel sound installation that invites the visitor to not only listen passively, but to actively create the artwork and the sound output.
Based on current field recordings from various places in the city of Szczecin and on archival recordings from different eras in the historical and cultural development of the town, the visitor is invited to manipulate and play with the sonic parameters. This way the visitor develops his own abstract sound sculpture, his Szczecin, a soundscape every other person in the room can listen to.
The title of the installation can also be understood as a reminiscence of the musical genre musique concrète1. Like in musique concrète, where the starting point of a composition is pre-recorded sound, the re-construction of the source material and the experiment, the listening, the hearing, the composing, the creation and the performance are inextricably linked with each other and take place in the exhibition room at the same time. Concrete sound evolves into abstract music.
2015 premiered at digital_ia 15, 13muz, szczecin, poland
Szczecin Concrète (2015) – room, interaction controller and two of eight loudspeakers
Szczecin Concrète (2015) – the controller box for visitor interaction
The visitor is able to choose from different sound sources of szczecin and different musical sound qualities. The sources belong to different groups: city, music, speeches, industry. Every source is ordered in a historical sense from past to present. The sound quality is a state of transformation of each sound source which can be changed continuously, e.g. rhythmical, melodic, granulated or stretched to mention only a few. The result is a polyphonic sound sculpture, which moves spatially through space. Even the visitor doesn´t take some action, the installation change its behaviour on itself and will never sound the same.
Here are some pictures of the recorded sound sources of szczecin:
szczecin the bell
szczecin traffic 01
szczecin traffic 2
szczecin traffic3 railway station
szczecin traffic 4 – under the bridge
szczecin traffic 5 – under the bridge in someones living room
szczecin spring
szczecin nature and tiny harbour
szczecin motorcycle gang
szczecin beeb beeb
szczecin industry