In collaboration with Derck Littel.
Performed at SoundSide in the Royal College of Art, December 2017.
The 14 active computer-speakers are only powered with a handmade power supply in DC and there’s no sound going through them. The ground noise, 50 Hz hum, that nobody desires normally, is all the output. The hum can be amplified by grounding the plugs in different ways and sometimes it changes the pitch a little, yet it’s terribly out of tune. During the performance we use the noise as a compositional element and Derck improvises to it with his cello.
Conceptually the work was made for the Night of the Broken Glass (link var) but applies to a larger frame. The anthropomorphic set up points to any similar situations where people could have a voice but remain silent with a consonant hum. The grey speakers represent both the masses and a graveyard.
