Ralf Brög – Three Model Rooms
Text by Anja Schürmann
»Music has notes, scales and keys: it can construct.« (Walter Benjamin)*
»Musica amat silentium,« wrote Johann Adam Hiller in 1767, welcoming the
new development whereby, during a concert, the public no longer made a
noise, talked, played billiards or cards, but instead sat motionless and
moreover, in silence. Out of this silence the music emerged, it was the
prerequisite and dialectical twin of sound. But silence is never
totally silent. Absolute silence has to be produced by artificial means,
and this is only possible in so-called acoustically dead spaces.
Silence – paradoxical as it may sound – also forms the basis of the
acoustic installations created by Ralf Brög, together with musicians
Stefan Schneider, Kurt Dahlke, Jörn Stoya and theater director and
author Kevin Rittberger.
Noises can indeed be heard in the three new entrance halls and corridors
at Heinrich-Heine-Allee, but this is sound rather than noise, sound
that serves as an antidote to the cacophonous restlessness of the
street. Brög’s assigns the names Auditorium, Theater and Laboratory to
the three model rooms in his design: spaces in which he explores how
resonance, in both graphical form and acoustically as sound, functions
as music.
The experimental nature of Brög’s concept is particularly evident in the
Laboratory, where two sound-emitting objects hang in the escalator
space, responding to an »interference atlas« in the corridor. This atlas
consists of 45 printed ceramic tiles arranged in three rows, which
together depict – in varying copper groove patterns, as on a record – an
imaginary musical typology. The wave-like nature of sound is revealed
in the so-called elemental groove, depicted only once, which forms the
basis for all subsequent tiles, on which Brög stretches, squeezes,
distorts and twists the grooves to create interference patterns. The
optical phenomenon of interference – similar to light refraction in a
rainbow – occurs when light waves overlap, causing lines to transmute
into grids that scatter light and take on a life of their own as Moiré
patterns.
This phenomenon can also be observed in the two sound objects;
responding to the movement of the escalator, the perforated metal in the
seven elements produces a similar effect. Purple and lime green
polyhedral shapes hang from the ceilings: shapes which Brög has often
employed and here – alluding to Albrecht Dürer’s famous etching – they
are entitled Melancholy Box. These objects – derived from the golden
section – emit sounds, and as they are speakers, each one is controlled
separately.
Stefan Schneider’s composition Stairs combines notes taken from the
scale of E major, all of which were recorded with a vibraphone, then
edited as loops of varying length so that random, new combinations of
notes are always possible. The timbre of this percussion instrument –
often used to herald an announcement or as a school gong – reminds one
of ringing bells. However, by limiting the notes of the scale and
through combining them randomly, one never has the feeling that an
announcement is imminent or that the break might be at an end; the
individual segments produce balanced and gentle sounds that elucidate
Schneider’s idea of generating a complex structure of acoustic
possibilities from the limited scope of a scale.
The Theater, already signaled from afar by a deep red ceramic curtain,
is an area of the station where Brög and Kevin Rittberger worked
together. Here where an escalator transports passengers continually at
the same speed, a radio play is about to go on air, for which Rittberger
has drawn on the Orpheus myth: it is the story of the singer Orpheus,
whose attempt to rescue his beloved from the underworld fails when on
leaving, contrary to the instructions of the gods, he turns around to
look at her. This story is in part adapted from the opera L’Orfeo by
Claudio Monteverdi and in part from Rittberger’s own play, Candide.
Acting in Concert is subtly arranged on three multi-channel speakers,
integrated into the curtain. This spatial simulation using different
voices breaks up this short escalator ride, like the myth itself, into a
performance with several acts. Passers-by find it impossible to locate
the source of the voices and sound fragments and begin to wonder whether
they are standing here in front of the stage, or already on it. For a
brief moment the ceramic curtains form an ephemeral space, a place where
one begins to doubt that what he or she perceives is entirely illusory.
Despite knowing we must not do so, we still turn around.
The title of the last model room, Auditorium, already denotes its
function: together with musicians Pyrolator and Jörn Stoya, Brög has
created a lecture hall as a long corridor connecting Königsallee with
the subway tunnel. The acoustics are optimized using white enamel tiles,
with surfaces that encourage sound waves to bounce off the positive and
negative forms at multiple angles. Starting with a square pyramid, the
shape is then manipulated in several different ways: as a positive or
negative form, a single element or set of four, and shapes are also
rotated. The light reflecting off the pure white enameled surfaces and
the rotated elements create a subtle, almost crystalline effect in the
Auditorium and – even though the tiles might be the functional
precursors of acoustic panels in a sound studio – they bring to mind
futuristic glacier structures.
Hidden behind the tiles are 48 individually controlled loudspeakers,
onto which Dahlke and Stoya have programmed the 3D audio installation
Like Birds On The Wire. The speakers are arranged relatively close
together so that one experiences the sound as a pleasant sensation. The
noise is non-directional, neither above nor below, but is experienced
through one’s entire body and this sensation lingers on, on the way to
or from the train. It is as if one were to pass by an orchestra where,
just momentarily, each individual instrument can be made out – this is
how Brög describes the acoustic impression. But here it is not an
orchestra we are listening to, but birdsong accompanying the listener
like the jingling of tinkling ornaments. Dahlke and Stoya recorded the
birdsongs of many domestic species and then processed them
electronically. The spatial sound differentiation was achieved using 3D
simulation software and a specially programmed random number generator.
In addition, sensors can detect the background noise in the station and
alter the volume so that the installation is quieter when fewer people
are around. Located in the middle of the city one is surprised to be
confronted by this virtual reminder of nature, which can also be varied
with different species of birds, depending on the time of day or the
season.
Brög’s acoustic design for the station presents the city with an initial
proposal of how it might be practically implemented. His design creates
outstanding sound spaces that need to remain adaptable. It is
conceivable that concert broadcasts might follow, or a thematic series
involving individual bands, sound artists or composers. The unifying
element of the model rooms is the notion that sound is a noise that
arises out of collective silence. In spite of coming from so many
loudspeakers, it is always individualized and therefore can be
experienced subjectively.
*
Paul Valéry in der École Normale: Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, IV. I, Frankfurt a. Main 1991, p. 480.Back to top
