‘Klangnetze’. Sound nets. A sound network. Network. Several places. Connections. Interdependent, but also independent. These are the first words in my notebook for the sound installation as part of the ‘Klangnetze’ project. The technical conditions: Five microphones, five loudspeakers, five Raspberry Pis. One microphone, one loudspeaker and one Raspberry Pi each make up a so-called agent. Each agent is independent of the others. Through the microphone, however, they can develop a dependency on each other. And probably the most important point: it is a sound installation in a public space.
I like to work on sound installations in public spaces. Nevertheless, working on them is for me a balancing act. A compromise between living out my artistic ideas and the local conditions. A balancing act between my artistic ideas and the self-imposed requirement not to become a nuisance to the residents with a constant sound. For me, these are essential considerations when working on a sound installation in public space. I don’t want residents and people living on the street to feel disturbed by my sounds, because they can’t escape them. In a way, I am entering their living environment with my sound installation. I want to enrich their living world with my sonic ideas and conceptions. These sounds will please some but certainly not everybody. Therefore, I try to create sounds that sometimes are well audible, whereas in some other moments one has to prick up the ears to catch them, perhaps briefly pausing to really listen. In my work “seated in bells” I have also programmed pauses for this reason, so that there is no continuous sound texture.

Then, for a few weeks my thoughts went back and forth. Ideas came up, but didn’t really take hold for me and I got lost again. At times I even felt despair as I didn’t find any of my ideas exciting. What always helps me in these moments is to think about or understand again what my artistic work is actually about: In many of my works, as ultimately also in “seated in bells”, I deal with the central theme of hearing, or rather of listening. With my works I want to encourage listening. To develop a listening attitude. To encourage a joy in everyday sounds. To emphasise the beauty in everyday sounds. Enriching the public space with sounds rather then masking the environment with them. To stage that moment when sound is gone and only then one realizes that there was a sound there. To create an awareness for the sounds in the public space through my sounds. Works and texts by Pauline Oliveros, Annea Lockwood, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and La Monte Young, among others, are for me groundbreaking. In different ways, all these composers deal with listening, both their own listening and the listening of the visitors. They deal with sound, noise and silence in a way that is inspiring to me.

My central question in Klangnetze project was for me: How can I stage a listening between the agents that passers-by perceive as listening? This question led to an idea that I began to work on. The agents became independent agents for me. Each of them was assigned a different “task” and thus also an independent programme code. The basic element was imitation. Two of the agents had to try to imitate their environment - conversations, church bells, etc. - however, their imitation was always offset by a few seconds so that the passers-by could explicitly perceive it as an imitation and an imitation. First attempts with pitch-following in Supercollider brought quick results. During these trials, I was surprised by how quickly one develops feelings for an electronic device: the laptop quickly annoyed me when it constantly imitated me. This experience showed me that my approach worked. Additionally an artistically exciting aspect was at this point that the agents start to imitate themselves and also each other, as they also listen to each other. This fact unfortunately also became problematic, which is why I had to change my concept again. Up to this point, I had only done experiments in a closed room, which was very quiet. The agents were also only one metre away from each other. Within this framework, everything worked great. However, initial tests in my parents’ garden showed: I had to change everything. It didn’t work. The agents would be more than one meter apart where they would be installed. Consequently, I had to adjust the levels, which very quickly led to feedback.

I needed a new idea. However, I didn’t want to change everything, because I liked the basic concept of the agents’ listening. So I asked myself the question: what is listening for the agents? Listening for the agents means following, analysing and reacting. The agents listen to the soundscape that surrounds them. In the soundscape there are, among other things, parameters such as volume and pitch. My new goal was now to write one code equal for all of the five agents. However, the aforementioned parameters of the soundscape would in turn influence certain parameters of the code and thus individualize the sound each agent produces. This is how “seated in bells” came into being.

The agents analyze the pitch and the amplitude of their environment’s sounds. This analysis serves as the basis for the sine oscillators that form the audible sound. All agents work with the same programme code. However, because they are located in different places, the data of sound pitch and volume differ. Because of these subtle differences, the sounds of the agents weave together to form one big whole.

On the sonic level, I tried to come close to my imagination. If the ambient noise gets louder, the agents also get louder and change their sound. If it is constantly quiet, a steady and rather quiet sound emerges. I imagine this sound as a sort of bell that engulfs or envelops the ambient sounds. And this bell-like enveloping sound is what I am trying to create. The ideal volume for this installation is, in my opinion, just above the limit of audibility. Because this makes it possible for the ambient sounds to be perceived as a whole with the sounds of the installation.

I programmed “seated in bells” in Supercollider. The programme code is minimalist and simple. The sound is generated by sine oscillators.
Amplitude followers (env1, env2 and amp_follower) track the volume of the surrounding sounds. A pitch follower (freq) tracks the pitch of the ambient sounds. The sound is generated by the supercollider UGen “DynKlank”, a bank of sine oscillators. The frequencies of the sine oscillators are determined by the pitch follower and varied by the amplitude follower env2. The volume of the individual frequencies is determined by amp_follower and varied by env1.

The source signal (scr = Dust.ar(10)) is the result of a necessary compromise. This makes the output signal crackle. Due to feedback, however, it was not possible to use the input signal as the source signal. So there is still potential to improve the code and to develop this sound installation further in a new edition.