Einmal ist Keinmal
"Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier, simpler." -- F.W. Nietzsche
Cycles. Repetition. Desire. Duality. Emotion fascinates as much as it frightens us. It connects us to ancient mechanisms, animal instincts long forgotten. The Siren's song, framed as an evil tool, would cause men to fall to their deaths just to be with them. Loss of control creates uncertainty; uncertainty implies the threat of castration. So, we invented technology. Yet just to be near that which arouses feeling, we would risk it all.
In this immersive installation, speakers are pointed outwards at different angles towards the walls and ceiling, using a reflective room as an echo chamber where the sound emanates ubiquitously as if from all around at once. Here, an acoustic impulse response (the reverberation from a specific location) is applied to an ancient Swedish call to cows in a mountain landscape, for 25 cycles until the semblance of song disappears: each time, details of the original melody dissolve further while the most dominant frequencies are amplified. Each cycle is an eternal return where self-renewal = self-destruction. The feeling of enchantment by a hypnotic melancholic beauty, of a primordial connection to nature, slowly drowns in a sea of sine waves. What is left is an alien soundscape, drained of complexity and coloured with a different emotional palette. Gradually, it takes on a different kind of beauty -- darker, emptier, simpler.
