Article by Judith Vallette // July 24, 2020
Although its club doors remain closed for the time being, Berghain offers to interested visitors a perpetuation of intriguing sounds and rhythms through its sound installation ‘Eleven Songs – Halle am Berghain’. Sam Auinger and Hannes Strobl’s artistic friendship has resulted in a site-specific sound art creation. The two artists have, under the creative name TamTam, designed their compositions to match the architecture and space of Halle am Berghain. As a gigantic industrial space, the hall is unique in providing a source for resonance as well as an atmosphere of something rigid, something concrete. The pieces, in this way, playfully use the acoustics and sound properties imbued in the architecture and as such the space becomes an integral part of the exhibition itself. One can even describe it as a participating instrument. This reinforces the artist’s desired message of the invariable linkage between listening and its spatial context and dynamics.
TAMTAM: ‘Eleven Songs’ // Photo by Roman März
TamTam has used the label “Raum Farben” (room colours) as a description for their previous sound installations to emphasise a mutually symbiotic relationship between sound, space, and the art produced as a whole. In their exhibition, TamTam manipulates the space-time perception of participators. With a fluctuating acceleration and deceleration of sound, the artists plunge the visitor into a dissociative experience, experiencing the piece through the tool of space. The artistic duo revolts against a horizontal conceptualization of sound like on a sheet of music from one note to another to show sound as a cohesive and multidirectional being. They also play with the idea of suspense as the experiencer of their holistic pieces waits in anticipation for the next audio cue. ‘Eleven Songs’ is an immersive experience entangling sound composition, color symbolism, and a heavy emphasis on spatial auditory dynamics.
Exhibition Info
HALLE AM BERGHAIN
Tamtam (Sam Auinger & Hannes Strobl): ‘Eleven Songs – Halle am Berghain’
Exhibition: July 15–Aug. 02, 2020
Opening Hours: Wednesday–Sunday; 2–8pm
Admission: € 8 (5 reduced)
Am Wriezener Bahnhof, 10243 Berlin, click here for map
TAMTAM: ‘Eleven Songs’ // Photo by Roman März
