by Nicole Krenn and Thomas Grill, 2019
commissioned by rotting sounds
Paint on paper, generative audio composition
The installation “Fields of Haze” claims the western corner of the auditorium with 31 paper-covered stretcher hangers suspended from the ceiling. The pale color surfaces break the view to the back wall of the library of the Music University – where thousands of scores are stored – on the other side at this point notes for ensembles with several pianos. In very slow succession, chords seep through the wall and emerge through the mists. In short, they are clearly audible, but run quickly and spread out over the paper walls. Gradually, they blend into a vague tonal color that settles permanently in time and space.
Architecturally, the installation presents itself as a flatly dissected image of single images that spans the corner of the room, detached from the classical hanging on a flat wall. Through its permeability, it opens the room into the depth, but on the other hand, it offers a homogeneous radiating surface for the sound. At the same time, the paper carries both a visual and an acoustic color, in a movement that moves both spatially and temporally.
The piano chords represent the composition Véxations by Erik Satie (played by Jaime Wolfson), whose prescribed 840-times repetition at the chosen tempo would take several weeks. The individual sounds melt within a few seconds through spectral erosion processes, as they are also manifested in the MP3 compression and condense into swathes of digital sound vapor.
Archive
You can find archived sounds of the piece (1 min per hour) at the Rotting Sounds Archive.
