Boom Bloopers

Three conceptual collages on paper. The term “Boom Blooper” describes a moment in a movie or video where the recording microphone being briefly visible in a shot.

First Encounter, Desert Springs
Acoustic Assemblage: Ice Cubes, Joshua Tree, Sun
(2011, mit Peter Fritzenwallner)

Being in the first-worldly absurd position of having a bag of ice cubes in our trunk of our car while driving through the Californian desert with the thermometer clocking 48 degrees celsius, the holes in these ice cubes and the spiky leaves of the Joshua Tree, upon their first encounter, suddenly configured into this perfect modular system. For about half an hour, while the ice disintegrated under the sun, we could hear tiny crackling  and sizzling noises, and the damp sound of water drops falling on the ground and being absorbed by the hot sand.

Ono mato, Po iesis

The artists recorded a fairly standard situation in a recording studio: a vocalist performing in the live room while the digital audio workstation operator sits in the control room pushing buttons, checking levels etc.

The vocalist is trying to imitate the sound of listening into a seashell only using experimental vocal techniques. Bored by the ongoing attempt to record all possible facets of the sound, the operator drifts away watching videos online. The sound carries him to exotic beaches and then away through the spectrum of related videos and screensavers nurturing his escapist fantasies. Meanwhile the vocal performer records one impression after the other, until he’s exhausted and out of breath.

The installation shows the recording situation on a monitor in a silent video. The sound recordings are composed to overlay each other, and played back through modified microphones, mounted in an assemblage with two large seashells.

Coded Cultures 2011, Magazin Wien

“White Out / Glisz” continues on an exploration that the Viennese artist duo started in 2009. Interested in modifying the causal relationships and decontextualizing the paradigmatic correlations between space, time and sound in popular electronic media, they juxtapose relics of technoid cultures with romanticist depictions of nature. Through this site-specific installation, Artachments’ idyllic waterfront space is put in a transcendental state by playing an endlessly rising hymnal synthesizer Glissando with glistering bright lights pointing out from whitened windows. The inside of the exhibition space is hidden by transparent material whilst it illuminates and places its surroundings into hyperspatial resonances with an endless loop of anticipative rave euphoria.

Artachment Basel, Juni 2011

Ast fällt auf Tonspur – LP B by BNJMN T

Ast fällt auf Tonspur

Eine Konstellation aus der Videoprojektion einer sinusförmigen Waldlandung,
derer fotografischer Dokumentation, einer Realtime Sound Engine, einem selbstreflektierenden Laptop, einem Video aus dem Foleystudio, einem Stapel von Partiturplakaten, einer Schallplattenedition sowie einer kinetischen Assemblage aus Busch, Mikrophonständer, Mikrophon und Ventilator.

»Um differentielle Wahrnehmbarkeitsschwellen zu bestimmen werden häufig Forced Choice Versuche benutzt. Hierbei werden einer Versuchsperson mehrere Situationen mit einem definierten Unterschied dargeboten. Die Versuchsperson hat die Aufgabe, die Situationen nach bestimmten Kriterien zu ordnen (z.B. welches Geräusch ist lauter, welches Licht ist heller, welche Person ist angetrunkener etc). Forced-Choices in der Psychoakustik sind aber auch im un-experimentellen Alltag anzutreffen: Kühlschrankbrummen am Sonntagmorgen, beschleunigende Busse mit schleifender Kupplung, der SMS-Klingelton und das Herzrasen. Oder aber eben: Ast fällt auf Tonspur«
(Text: Albert Allgaier)

Magazin Vienna, 2010
Latned Atsär Los Angeles, 2011

Extratemporary
Church Organ, Laptop, Speakers
(Vinyl LP, 2008)