If nothing was there

in cooperation with Nikhil Nagaraj und Jonas Wiese

multikanal Composition for tunnel, 2019
35 min. (Loop)

If nothing was there deals with the silence of untouched, natural soundscapes and their past and future. How might our world sound in 10, 100 or 1000 years, how did it sound a million years ago? How will terrestrial sound levels develop and how high will they rise in the future?

For years I have been working artistically and technically with spatial sound and noise perception, exploring the correlation between sound, environment and society. Most recently, I was on an expedition to Iceland in search of silence, where I made recordings of remote fjords, glaciers and caves to preserve their natural sounds. To penetrate to untouched places in order to record nature completely spared from noise pollution remains a paradoxical undertaking, so to speak, and virtually precludes an undistorted survey.

The project If nothing was there can be understood as the latest part of my ongoing project in which I collect field recordings around the globe. I mix and arrange the constantly growing archive of sounds for multi-channel 3D sound systems, with which distinctly spatial forms of representation are generated and recorded. I compare, distort, exaggerate or trivialize the diverse insights into my personal, subjectively perceived acoustic reality in my composition „If nothing was there“ with the aim of creating utopias and fictions of the acoustic future.

Credits: