About Achim Wollscheid [Brandon
LaBelle]: Achim Wollscheid amplifies the relationship between an outside
and an inside, the public and the private, by positioning them as an interface
between art object (sound) and audience. One of his projects, a house by seifert.stoeckmann@formalhaut.de
exemplifies his transformation of architecture and sound as terms in a complex
relationship. Installed along the front wall and two sides of the building,
the work consists of speakers and microphones mounted at corresponding points
on either side of the wall. Connecting the exterior microphone to the interior
speaker, and the interior microphone to the exterior speaker, the work amplifies
outside sounds on the inside and inside sounds outside. Throughout this process,
the sounds are digitally treated through a computer program that transforms
the sounds-as-information into musical tones. The work thus creates a relay
between street and living room through a musical process, frustrating the architectural
imperative of an exterior-interior devide. In addition, the work introduces
the audience as an influential and determining input, for the sounds can be
manipulated by individuals in the house: residents can turn up the volume, adjust
the level of transformation or turn off as they wish, like a stereo. Wollscheid’s
project is an invitation to noise and its potential disruption.
Brandon Labelle, “short circuit”, Contemporary, London 53/54, 2003.
[From: Brandon Labelle: »Short Circuit: Sound Art and The Museum«,
in: Contemporary 53/54, London 2003]
