TRASA 06
A Bi-Medial Space of Contact by georg klein

Audio-Visual Situation with Internet Live Stream
Between two Perman-Polish Pairs of Cities: Hannover – Poznan, Darmstadt – Plock
with Poems by Heiner Müller and Wislawa Szymborska

A project by KlangQuadrat. office for sound and media art berlin commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Germany in the context of the German-Polish Year 2005/2006

In cooperation with Landeshauptstadt Hannover – Kulturbüro, üstra Hannoversche Verkehrsbetriebe AG, infra Strukturgesellschaft Region Hannover GmbH | City of Poznań, Arsenal Galeria Miejska | Wissenschaftsstadt Darmstadt | City of Płock | Płocki Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki
With support by Remondis (Hannover) | Metro (Poznań) | Siemens Transportation Systems | QSC Stiftung für deutsch-polnische Zusammenarbeit (Darmstadt and Plock) | Jubiläumsstiftung der Sparkasse Darmstadt (Darmstadt)
Media partner Arte | Gazeta Wyborcza (Poznan) | Telewizja Polska (TVP3) (Poznan) | Radio dla Ciebie (Płock)

Dates

Hannover – Poznan 26.01. – 26.02.2006
Hannover Metro Station Kröpcke | Poznan / Rondo Kaponiera
Opening 26.01.2006 6 p.m.

Darmstadt – Plock 09.03. – 09.04.2006
Opening 09.03.2006 6 p.m.

Concept

Urban Intervention
TRASA combines sound art with video- and media-art to an interactive installation in public space. TRASA 06 is a simultaneous installation at two places in public space, which are connected by two different media: acoustically texts and electronic sounds are transferred. Live-images of the people passing by are projected next to each other on a wall or screen. First the partner cities Hannover and Poznan are connected, second Darmstadt and Plock.

Visual Interaction
The passages lead directly to a wall or along a shop window. There's a camera installed that films the people from a frontal perspective. These images are projected on the wall and at the same time streamed to the other city. The image of the other city is projected directly next to the own mirrored image. People of one urban space face people of the other urban space – and at the same time regard themselves. Perception of the others and oneself happen in a simultaneous process.

Musical Interaction / Acoustical Text-Tpography
Within the visual constellation a special track is defined by a sensor (laser). Moving on it makes two poems audible, in Germany the poem „Glückloser Engel 2“ by Heiner Müller, in Poland "Dworzec" by Wislawa Szymborska. If a person steps onto a certain spot of the track the assigned text would start in a musical ornamentation. Thus the text can be physically crossed and experienced according to the own position.

Interactive Text Loops
The position of a person initiates a loop and at the same time a process of variation of this loop. Similar to the method of granular synthesis the position and the length of the time-frame resp. the loop are variable. Smooth transitions were created by this artistic strategy as well as new combinations of text-fragments and thus a new meaning.

Generating a Common Sound Space
The varying text-loops will be spatially projected by 10 to 16 loudspeakers. While the people in Poland determine the polish text the Germans determine the German one. The Data is transferred simultaneously so both texts (and both "movements") can be heard at both locations. The languages are mixed to a common sound-space of comprehensible and non-comprehensible speech.

Poetic Reflection
The content of the poems reflects the real situation: meeting and not-meeting. Both poems talk about something missing. In the audio-visual situation people in both cities can see but not touch each other, they cannot talk and listen directly but hear the other language. The intimacy of the poem is in harsh contrast to the anonymity of the urban situation. In addition utopian thoughts are articulated in the poems: Both of them end with an acoustic metaphor for the loss of utopia.

Contact

KlangQuadrat. office for sound and media art berlin Manteuffelstr. 77 | 10999 Berlin | Tel 0049-(0)30-69 5678 97 | j.gerlach@klangquadrat.com Project management: Julia Gerlach