My Ear on the Wall_2017: Kristof Georgen

My Ear against the Wall

2017
5-channel audio installation
St. Crucis cemetery, Braunschweig
Overall loop-time: 48:00"

Multi-channel audio system, 5 loudspeakers, integrated into an architectural element and four earthenware vessels on wooden racks;
Quotations from James Joyce 'Ulysses' (chapter 11 / Sirens), Ovids' 'Metamorphoses' (dialogue Narcissus and Echo), foreign language course and the german phonetic alphabet

Voice / singing: Daniel Gloger (countertenor)

klangstaetten | stadtklaenge 2017 Braunschweig

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01 Mein Ohr an der Wand 4:09"

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02 Mein Ohr an der Wand 4:03"

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03 Mein Ohr an der Wand 3:43"

Video

Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Sketches / Score
Sketches / Score
Installation view

My Ear against the Wall is a site-specific multi-channel soundwork for the St. Crucis Cemetary in Braunschweig. The compositional main motif is the human voice. As an existential resource of communication and emotion, the voice is interpreted between reality and imagination.
The title My Ear against the Wall (to hear.) of the auditory 5-channel-soundwork is related to the 11th chapter (Sirens) from Ulysses by James Joyce. This and further thematic literary quotations on the voice in means of expression in music and everyday life were interpreted by countertenor Daniel Gloger.
The vocal solo part is acoustically located high up in a tree. In the composition it is juxtaposed by a dialogue between Narciss and Echo from Ovid's Metamorhoses: "Is someone here? Here, here! // Come! Come, come! // Why are you avoiding me? Avoiding me, avoiding me."
The dialogue leads from up the tree to the ground where four clay vessels on wooden racks are placed. The sound "emptys" the vessels. They are opened about 30 degrees downwards. Sounds of spoken language - fragmented and looped - indicate conversations in the form of mumbling groups. Musically functioning like a choir, the sounds in the vessels conceive as a polyphonic murmur of an imaginary society that the abandoned cemetery houses over the centuries.

Curated by Ulrich Eller, project management and realization stadtklaenge l klangstaetten 2017 by Dr. Anne Mueller von der Haegen (Allgemeiner Konsumverein Braunschweig e.V.)