Let’s sit down and enjoy ourselves
sound installation (2017)
In 1820, Pater Dunker registered a patent for his listening machine with a bendable ear.
I try to bend my ear, turn my head and see someone sitting there and
speaking. He speaks and nobody listens; or he speaks and listens to
himself; or he does not speak and moves as if he were speaking; and I
watch him as he does so. I do not hear him, he does not see me.
It seems that hearing and producing
sound are in constant interplay, with barely any delay. Normally a
musician performs or plays (blows and strikes, in this case), the
instrument sounds, the surroundings resonate and we, in turn, hear the
returning echo – this is familiar. But what if the inverse of this is
also true? Are we the sender, recipient and instrument all at the same
time? The relationship is compact: trapped in resonance, the instrument
remains the mediator. The instrument – an object? A body.
Let’s sit down and enjoy ourselves
is both an installation and an artwork, an experimental arrangement for
three listening machines, brass instruments, percussions and
four musicians outdoors.
from 5 to 7 May 2017, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Am Hammerteich, Witten, Germany
Paul Hübner, trumpet; Christoph Walder, french horn; Christophe Schweizer, trombone; Rie Watanabe, percussion
26 August 2017, mikromusik – festival of experimental music and soundart, Am Engelbecken, Berlin, Germany
Ensemble Apparat (Matthew Conley, trumpet; Samuel Stoll, french horn; Wojciech Jalińsky, trombone); Matthias Engler, percussion
17 + 18 August 2018, Festival Rümlingen, Häfelfingen, Switzerland
Paul Hübner, trumpet; Samuel Stoll, french horn; Stephen Menotti, trombone; Bastian Pfefferli, percussion
26 March 2022, Centre d'Art Passerelle, Brest, France
Jens Bracher, trumpet; Tomás Gallart, french horn; Stephen Menotti, trombone; Philipp Lamprecht, percussion; Kenan Trevien, sound engineering
