Murmurs Christoph De Boeck 2019

100 steel segments of 70x70cm from the 2009 installation Staalhemel are being recycled over a series of installations. In Murmurs the tiles are arranged and stacked on the floor, touching, supporting and covering each other. They are activated by 1500W bass transducers and a soundtrack based on the oscillators of a vintage Korg synth and multichannel processing in Max/MSP. The overlapping tiles reproduce the synthesizer sound up to 400Hz which is the cut-off point for the transducers. At each and every point of friction different sound effects arise depending on weight, balance and support. Resonance is interlocked with displacement. The depth of low frequencies down to 5Hz and the amplitude of gliding frequency ranges produce a variety of kinetic and (infra)sonic effects. To that extent that you could consider the range of material vibrations and friction sound as a second layer of oscillators. To build this installation is to learn how to play it.

A reference for this type of sonic presence is the classic sound art piece Times Square by Max Neuhaus which creates an ever present hum adding to the NY city traffic.