barblina meierhans

For three months during my stay in Bangalore, the topic of noise has been my constant companion (traffic, movement, voices, constructions). This city contains a dense concentration of this supposed chaos ‘noise’. Following questions accompanied me to chop my way through the undergrowth of acoustic phenomenas: What is noise, and at what point do we perceive it as such? If silence (as a complete vacuum of sound) does not exist, what forms the acoustic opposite to noise? Is there an opposite? What is silence, and at what point do we perceive it as such?
I discovered the countless ventilators in my surroundings. The sound of rotating fans are mostly ignored or just integrated in anyones daily life. It‘s not really disturbing, although it’s there anytime. Some perceive the sound as a constant noise, some perceive it as silence – once recognized or heard as such, it seems to be nearly nothing. This research is not finished nor complete, simply it led me toward two sound installations inspired by the contrasts and similarities of noise and silence.

III [ventilator] Part I – symphony of five fans with strips of paper/plastic/aluminium, five timers and a floorlight
III [ventilator] Part II – sound installation for a room with a fan at the ceiling, white thread, strip of newspaper, projection, audio and a floorlight

31 August 2013, 1 Shanthi Road, Shanthinagar, Bangalore, India
3 July 2015 (only Part II), Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften, Kraftwerk Mitte, Dresden, Germany
29 January 2016 (only Part II) Recital Hall, Kyung-hee University, Seoul, South Korea