Els Viaene

With a set-up of two small microp­ho­nes she lis­tens, zooms into and enlar­ges the aural lands­ca­pes sur­roun­ding us. The natu­ral rhythms and tex­tu­res of the sounds hid­den in tho­se lands­ca­pes form the basis of her work. Working on the­se sound mate­ri­als for per­for­man­ces, sound com­po­si­ti­ons or instal­la­ti­ons she makes the lis­te­ners tra­vel in ima­gi­na­ry and orga­nic envi­ron­ments. Through the spe­ci­fic use and set-up of sound within a spa­ce her instal­la­ti­ons cre­a­te new spa­ces within exis­ting ones, either emp­ha­si­zing or making dis­ap­pear the phy­si­cal bor­ders of that spa­ce. In doing so she often plays with the noti­ons of see­ing and hea­ring, the per­cep­ti­on of what we see and hear and how both interfere.

Sound as vibra­ti­on: a jour­ney into the ori­gin of sound (wor­king title)

Sound is my main wor­king mate­ri­al. I always obser­ved it as an ​‘end pro­duct’, a mate­ri­al that i catch and mold by the use of digi­tal recor­ders, com­pu­ters and other objects that i pla­ce inbe­t­ween myself and the sound. The lon­ger i work with sound the more i feel dis­tan­ced from it. How can i res­to­re this dis­tan­ce? Can i grasp this mat­ter that never makes itself visi­ble? These whe­re the star­ting ques­ti­ons for my research ​“Sound as vibra­ti­on” in which i inves­ti­ga­ted sound at its sour­ce, the moment it is sha­ped. I appro­a­ched sound as a phy­si­cal phe­no­me­non: a vibra­ti­on, a wave, a vari­a­ti­on in air pres­su­re. ​‘Shaping’ and ​‘appe­a­ring’ being two impor­tant con­cepts within this research. How can i sha­pe sound into a mat­ter which mani­fests itself as a tan­gi­ble, visi­ble medi­um?
In this last pha­se of the research i trans­la­te my jour­ney into a lec­tu­re / per­for­man­ce to open up the research towards an audien­ce. Afterwards the pro­ject will tra­vel to Lydgalleriet (NO) to pre­mie­re the per­for­man­ce and show the set-up as an exhi­bi­ti­on, instal­la­ti­on at the same time.

More info here.