Sound sculpture
Acrylic tubes, Voices, Solar panels, Custom electronics
“Organ of the sun – Voice of Herredsvang” was a site-specific musical work exhibited at “Marienlyst Park Festival” in the municipality of Aarhus in 2018.
The work, at one time, was a sound sculpture and an instrument.
The Sculpture was solar powered and the music was based on an algoritmic composition that incorporated the voices of citizens living in Herredsvang.
The installation was based on an earlier sculpture “The Forest Organ” made in collaboration with visual artist Birgitte Kristensen in 2013.
The installation consisted of acrylic tubes with lengths up to four meters attached to trees in a small forest next to the festival. There was a small electronics box, a wind sensor (anemometer) and a solar panel connected to each of the tubes.
The tubes were designed so their physical length corresponded to a wavelength with a given frequency in the same principle as on a pipe organ. The lengths were between approx. 2-4 meters corresponding to basic frequencies at approx. 23-87 Hz.
Unlike a pipe organ, the sound was generated from a speaker located in the tube, and not via compressed air and a mouthpiece. This principle, however, is used in electronic organs – known from e.g. Kienle organs).
The composition was based on sound material in form of recorded stories told by the citizens in Herredsvang about their relation to Herredsvang. It was the intention to get as many participants speaking as many languages as possible to join the project since there are people of more than 70 different nationalities living in the area around Herredsvagn. The many recordings were then filtered to resonate within the tubes and cut into smaller sound bites that could be combined in countless ways by the algorithmic composition.
The variation in timbre and rhythm of the stories told in different languages were the foundation for the composition.
Special software was created to calculate up to 250 harmonies of each tube and automatically create new variations of the audio files filtered with the calculated frequencies. More than 1000 files were generated for every tube.
Listen to an example of the sound processing applied to the recorded voices
More information about the principles of standing waves and resonance can be found here
Link for “Marienlyst Park Festival” and “Verden til Herredsvang” here
Marienlyst Park Festival
Marienlyst, Aarhus, DK, June 2019
Supported by The Danish Arts Foundation’s Committee for Visual Arts
