The small series SCHALLDOSE (soundbox) was created in the winter of 2021 during my residency at the Global Forest Kunstverein in St. Georgen in the Black Forest.
The work is based on the idea of an acoustic equivalent to the postcard and the medieval idea of the possibility of imprisoning sounds in vessels. The composition, which is hearable out of a tin can equipped with a piezo loudspeaker hidden under a double bottom, uses field recordings of St. Georgen and its surrounding area in winter, as well as recordings of clocks and running noises of historical music players from the german Phonomuseum.
The recordings were used both in their original, as well as in a manipulated form. The manipulations were obtained through solely analogue processes: by playing through various prepared tin can telephones, the original sound was filtered and then re-recorded. Materials used for the design of these “telephones” were for example nylon threads and wires of different sorts (copper, brass, aluminum), which designs were the result of an extensive research on the properties of the individual materials and their influence on the accentuation or attenuation of certain frequency ranges.
Furthermore, the vibration of the wires and cords adds a quasi-analogue reverb to the original sound.
SCHALLDOSE deals with the relationship between superimposition and extreme compression, in which the individual sources are no longer perceptible on the one hand, and isolation, reduction and the accompanying focussing, on the other hand, and processes the pandemic experiences of isolation, separation and the confrontation with the relationship between closeness and distance.