Lost & Found Orchestra II (2016)
- Foundscape, Installations, Interactive Installations, Sound Installations ?>
LOST & FOUND ORCHESTRA II meets IMMERTABLE
Lost & Found Orchestra is an ongoing sound art project. After the first edition where I used the pipes and cooling machines of the pump room in the monumental ‘Cathedral’ building in Radio Kootwijk as the basis for a composition, this second version became an entirely different undertaking.
The idea behind the work is that any sound or noise can be the basis for a music composition, and that therefore potential music compositions are hiding all around us, sleeping in the surfaces and objects we don’t generally perceive as sources of music.
Through this ongoing project I am hunting for site-specific sounds that are hidden in objects. These objects and their sounds are then used in a composition that is especially written for a particular place which is carried out in real-time by a collection of small electromagnetic machines, actuators, also known as solenoids.
In june 2016 I was invited to stay in the residency of Etopia: Centre for Art & Technology, in Zaragoza in Spain for a duration of two weeks. In these two weeks I worked together with artist and physicist Carles Tardio Pi, who was responsible for building and programming the ImmerTable, a project which was initiated by the University of Zaragoza and co-produced by Etopia, which I co-operated on two months earlier together with Carles, by making music especially designed to illustrate the possibilities of the ImmerTable: a multi-touch surface which allowed the user to use physical objects and gestures to operate the parameters connected to envelopes and controls.
During this residency we worked on building a presentation in Etopia where found objects were used as the basis for a musical composition, and to make the ImmerTable ready to be able to control the musical composition with the aid of physical objects on the multi-touch surface.
In this edition of Lost & Found Orchestra the objects that are used as the basis for the composition, were all found in Zaragoza. They form the basis that the installation is based on and their sounds are the starting point for the composition. The objects and the city that they are found in are the inspiration for the musical piece.
The Immertable project is making it possible for the audience to influence the composition and make a direct connection to the objects and their sounds. The interactive table functions as a communication device to the sound installation, the rhythm machines and the objects. It lets the visitor step into the role of the conductor of the orchestra, and be a maestro to the sounds in the objects. By adding, moving and removing objects on and from the Immertable the musical experience of the visitors can be moulded and manipulated in real-time.