Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller
dal 12/3/2009 al 16/5/2009
Segnalato da
12/3/2009
Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
With their new, major audio installation entitled The Murder of Crows, the two Canadian artists continue their investigation into the sculptural and physical formation of sound by means of various control systems which they have jointly pursued since the mid nineteen-nineties. Their new work sees a total of 98 speakers being set up in the exhibition space. The various sounds emanating from the speakers of voices, instruments and sonic environments, which are created by a special stereophonic recording and playback system, give rise to a composition which constitutes a direct, physical response to the listener.
Mixed Media Sound Installation
In the series "Works of Music by Visual Artists"
With "The Murder of Crows", their largest sound installation to date, the
Canadian visual artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller continue the
explorations they embarked on in the mid-1990s into the sculptural and
physical attributes of sound. In the otherwise empty historical hall of the
Hamburger Bahnhof, 98 loudspeakers are installed. These emit the sounds
of voices, music and soundscapes generated by special stereophonic
recording and replay techniques, creating a composition that has a direct
physical impact on the listener. The special Ambisonic soundfield system
generates a greatly intensified aural and emotional space, so that the
acoustic events that transpire in the three-dimensional soundspace have a
startling, disconcerting immediacy. The installation is conceived like a film
or a play, but one whose images and narrative structures are created by
sound alone. The three-part work, composed in collaboration with Freida
Abtan, Tilman Ritter and Titus Maderlechner, is 30 minutes long.
The installation’s title, "The Murder of Crows", refers both to the English
term for a flock of those birds and to the strange occurrence known as a
‘crow funeral’: when a crow dies, many other crows converge around the
body and caw, perhaps in lament, for over 24 hours. Another central
reference is the etching "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" by
Francisco de Goya from the series "The Caprices" (Los Caprichos, 1799). In
this suite of etchings, Goya, in the spirit of the enlightenment, took a critical
look at tyranny, ignorance and superstition. In an epoch characterized by
political and social upheavals, wars and insurrections, he warned:
"Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters". His
etching depicts a man asleep at a table, head resting on his crossed arms,
encircled by a threatening swarm of night creatures. Is he the master of the
demons his dreaming imagination conjures up, or do they have mastery
over him? Are the birds of horror flying at him or does he incite them to
flight? It’s an open question.
In the installation by Cardiff & Miller, one hears Janet Cardiff’s voice, coming
from a megaphone lying on a table at the center of the room, relating
thoughts and dreams. Like Goya’s sleeping man, she is a captive of her own
nightmares, experiencing dreadful scenes fraught with fear and terror.
Sounds and noises roam the space of the exhibition like the owls and bats
that flit around the sleeper in Goya’s etching. In the transition from one
sound world to the next, the work’s structure follows the illogical yet
somehow interrelated progressions that we know from the realm of dreams.
The sound piece becomes a requiem for a world that has lost its bearings,
where a dearth of reason – but also an excess of expedient rationality – has
brought forth unimaginable atrocities, madness, and catastrophe.
For this installation, the two artists again employ technical processes they
developed for earlier works such as "The Forty Part Motet" (2001), "The
Berlin Files" (2003) and "Pandemonium" (2005), now expanding those
field-tested control systems through the use of newly created software.
Their spatial dramatization of the acoustic material goes far beyond the
scope of the classic radio play, as they carry the listener off into a
fascinating, uncanny world full of suggestive sounds and dream images.
Janet Cardiff, born 1957, and George Bures Miller, born 1960, live and work
in Berlin and Grindrod, British Columbia, Canada. Together they work at the
border zone of visual art, audio art, film and theater. In their installations,
they explore the affective impact of sound and its influence on our
perception and experience. And so the listener, the exhibition visitor,
effectively becomes a protagonist in their audio-visual stagings, as with the
sound and video walks they have created for numerous exhibitions around
the world since 1995.
"The Murder of Crows" exhibition is one in the series of "Works of Music by
Visual Artists" which has been presented since 1999 by Freunde Guter
Musik Berlin e.V. in collaboration with the Nationalgalerie, and since 2002
with MaerzMusik – Festival of Contemporary Music | Berliner Festspiele. The
work was commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna
for the Biennale of Sydney 2008, where it was first realized.
For the exhibition a booklet with 48 pages and an essay by Carolyn
Christov-Bakargiev will be published. Price: 5 €.
A project by Freunde Guter Musik Berlin e.V., Nationalgalerie im Hamburger
Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art
Contemporary, Vienna. In collaboration with MaerzMusik 2009 | Berliner
Festspiele. Made possible by funding from Hauptstadtkulturfonds and
Canada Council for the Arts. With support from Bowers & Wilkins Speakers
and Canadian Embassy, Berlin. With thanks to Galerie Barbara Weiss,
Berlin, and Luhring Augustine, New York. Commissioned by Thyssen-
Bornemisza Art Contemporary for Sydney Biennale 2008.
Image: The Murder of Crows, 2008, mixed Media Sound Installation: Sydney Biennale 2008. Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna. Foto: Eva Trust © Courtesy the artists, Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin, Luhring Augustine, New York
Presse:
Anne Schäfer-Junker
Fon +49 (0)30 266 2629 Fax +49 (0)30 266 2995 presse@smb.spk-berlin.de
Freunde Guter Musik Berlin e. V.
Achim Klapp Tel. 030-25797016 E-Mail: presse@freunde-guter-musik-berlin.de
Opening: Friday, March 13, 2009, 8 p.m.
Press preview: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 11 a.m.
Nationalgalerie / Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart
Berlin, Invalidenstr. 50-51, 10557 Berlin
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Sat 11 a.m. – 8 p.m., Sun 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.