Forgotten Spaces, in Freiburg

Forgotten Spaces, an interdisciplinary festival of microtonal music, visual and sound art F58, temporäre Räume der Kulturliste Freiburg Friedrichstraße 58, 79098 Freiburg. July 4.

Ephraim Wegner will be presenting 8a1b11c4d11e2f2g4i2l3m11n13o5r7s10t1u2z, a sound installation for 8 Speakers.

Glass production involves a range of raw materials combined in a very specific method at high temperatures. The melted material – it has to be worked on quickly – achieves its desired physical condition by being cooled abruptly. The original material attains perfection by being newly formed.

Furnaces, tools and machines generate a multiplicity of sounds, which are not perceived as separate sound sensations on site.

Sound recording as technical achievement makes it possible to detach sounds from their original surroundings, where they are no more than background noise, biographical nostalgia and sometimes even nuisance factors. Like the finished glassware they leave their place of origin and reformed in a new time and molecular structure they gain new quality and relevance. In everyday life we are not aware of the potential sounds and energy embedded in glass, but they are in the centre of this compositional work.

The installation uses several recordings of the artist. These soundscapes were made within the framework of the artistic residence project LOUD LISTENING Through The Sound of Murano Glass. They were recorded in various glass manufactories on the island of Murano located north east of old town Venice in 2014.

By using the collected sound material a sound map was created. Together with a twenty-minute-long video documentation it is available on in Vimeo.

In 2015 Crónica will publish a release where several musicians were invited to re-interpret the collected recordings.