12-tone-filter – TunedCity Tallinn

Beschreibung:

interactive and participative installation in public space, TunedCity Tallinn, zusammen mit Florian Tuercke und Jürgen Lehmeier

Bauherr:

Estonian Ministry of Culture, TunedCity

Standort:

Tallinn/Estonia

Zeitraum:

2011

Hear Tallinn with new ears! Buildings and architecture are usually described in visual terms. But it is often our sense of hearing which assists us in experiencing and navigating through the spaces of urban cities.There is no sound without space and no space without a sound. In every day life we are surrounded by the sounds of diverse nature and various origins. Language, sounds of nature and civilisation – sound as a carrier of information or as a factor of disturbance permanently encircles our consciousness.Tuned City Tallinn undertakes an acoustic exploration of Tallinn. The goal will be to identify and explore the sonic landmarks of the city which define its identity, shape its communication and transform the perceptions of its visitors and inhabitants. A fascinating cross-section of international artists, performers, scientists and thinkers is brought together to present their ideas about sound and space. In addition, the public is invited to participate directly through a series of workshops and sound walks and experience diverse site-specific installations, performances and demon-strations.

12-tone-filter is a mobile sonic object that transforms urban noises into tuned sounds. The object is made of 12 PVC drain pipes. The pipes have a diameter of 100mm, they are connected by elastic adhesive agent. The resonance of a tube of air is related to the length of the tube. Pipes of twelve different lengths convert the incoming noises by resonance, noise is tuned to different harmonic tonalities.The scale reaches from E to next Es´ and includes odd and even number harmonics.The listener receives a new quality of hearing street traffic, aircraft noises and other strong everyday sounds.In addition one can play the object like an instrument, fading several tubes in and out. It can be used as interactive object for passerbys in public space and it can also be used as instrument for concerts in public space.12-tone filter is an effective transformer of badnoise into good noise. Thanks to its reduced weight the object is mobile. One person can handle it focusing on interesting sources. It has the metaphoric appearance of a big anti-noise weapon, like a multi-barrel gun. On the other hand it reminds us of a non-esoteric sonic counterdraft to Wilhelm Reich´s cloudbuster. The best place for the filter is near sound polluted and highly frequented streets and other places of so-called bad noise.