Timo Kahlen. Sound sculptures and installations                                                                                                          (page 1/3)

Nominated for the German national Sound Art Prize 2006

Timo Kahlen. Media Dirt (Kiasma, 2004)
Sound sculpture at the National Museum of
Contemporary Art
(Kiasma) in Helsinki / Finland.

Three glass cylinders, several loudspeakers and
the sound of interfering radio frequencies :
" temporary, immaterial noise and beauty
found in between radio stations ...
creating a complex, artificial, purely technological,
yet seemingly 'natural' (sometimes insect or bird-like)
soundscape. In this way, the glass cylinders
become the laboratory for a re-construction,
a new abstract form of nature."
(Werner Ennokeit)

Sound sculpture exhibited at the International Symposion on Electronic Arts ISEA 2004

Timo Kahlen / Berlin and Ian Andrews / Sydney.
Sound Drift, 2005.
A series of interactive, generative
sound spaces at www.staubrauschen.de/sounddrift/
containing drifting 'clouds' filled with
radio noises: visual, kinetic audio clusters.
A concept for an immaterial exhibition
consisting of audio clusters slowly drifting
from one gallery space to the next
at the Ruine der Kuenste Berlin.

Click into the kinetic 'clouds' to move from one room to the next.
The interactive buttons will behave in various ways
(some will have to be clicked two or three times...)
Turn up your audio !

.            

Timo Kahlen. Concepts for 'Sound Drift', 2005. In collaboration with Ian Andrews / Sydney.
Courtesy Ruine der Kuenste Berlin







Timo Kahlen. SWARM, 2008
8 channel sound sculpture
at Fortezza / Franzensfeste fortress:
steel construction (800 x 100 x 100 cm),
enclosed sound of bees
Courtesy MANIFESTA 7 / Italy

For Manifesta 7 "Scenarios" sound exhibition at Fortezza,
Timo Kahlen created an irritating sound sculpture
blocking the central courtyard giving access
to the abandoned 19th century fortress.
The abstract steel sculpture enclosed the manipulated
sound of bees: initially a calm buzzing, the sounds became
increasingly agitated, nervous and defensive as the viewer
proceeded on his way into the fortress - only later to repose
to a soft and tranquile hum.









Several of Timo Kahlen's works use empty spaces (voids)
to visualize sound waves and radiation occupying
or filling the apparently 'empty' volume of air.
Timo Kahlen's earliest sound sculpture of
this type, Vitrine, was first presented
at the Hochschule der Kuenste Berlin in 1993, later at
the Galerie Voges + Deisen in Frankfurt (1994)
and at the Oberösterreichische Landesgalerie
in Linz (Austria) in 1997.

Timo Kahlen. Interference
(restroom of the DCAC Arts Center,
Washington DC) 1994,
Luftraum, 2001 and
Schwirren (Whirring), 1993 / 2000.

Sound sculptures: display cases / marmalade jars,
speakers, enclosed sound of interfering
radio shortwave frequencies

Timo Kahlen. Leerraum (Void), 1995.
Sound and light installation at the
Ruine der Künste Berlin.

An empty house, filtered windows panes.
Twittering, pulsing, singing sounds of interfering radio
shortwaves and synthesized fragments of birds' songs,
emitted from invisible loudspeakers beneath the floor,
meander across the walls.

The sounds used in a number of
Timo Kahlen's sound sculptures and
installations are based on the artist's
archive of nomadic, ephemeral, interfering radio waves,
'static noise and beauty' recorded
inbetween radio stations since 1987.

In the sound and light installation 'Leerraum'
the interfering radio waves create a complex, artificial,
purely technological, but at the same time strangely
'natural', insect- or birdlike soundscape ... enhanced by
birds' voices and filtered (green) views from the windows
into the garden

"Die Vogelstimmen sind eine Nuance zu deutlich, die Folien an den Fenstern eine Spur zu grün.
Darum begreift man schnell, daß die Nähe zur Natur gemeint ist, nicht aber nachgeahmt werden soll.
Der Raum flirrt, fängt so die Aufmerksamkeit des Besuchers. Ähnlich wie in der Natur folgt man
den an- und abschwellenden Geräuschen mit suchendem Blick, versucht vergebens,
die Lautsprecher dingfest zu machen, begegnet dabei dem durch das einfallende Licht
gezauberten komplementären Rot an den Wänden und wird allmählich Teil des leeren Raumes."
Hanna Lentz, Berlin 1995

Timo Kahlen
Media Dirt, 1989 - 1997 (2001)
and Staubrauschen (2001).
From a series of audio CD editions based
on an archive of hissing, gurgling, scratching,
whirring, singing, dirty radio noise of interfering
frequencies between stations
recorded 1989 - 1997

Audio CD editions: 32 min 40 sec / 35 min 24 sec

Timo Kahlen. ping tschae tschae, 2005
generative, interactive multi-channel sound installation

In "ping tschae tschae" (which is the scientific, ornithological
description of a specific birds' song - read aloud by the artist,
amongst other descriptions, from a bird watcher's book)
the gallery space is filled with complex, yet seemingly mechanical,
artificial or descriptive sounds of birds' songs, appearing / disappearing
at random locations in the room. How do we experience nature today ?
The complexity increases as more
sounds can be generated from the only object in the room,
an interactive touchscreen monitor showing a piece of wood.

See http://www.staubrauschen.de/ping/

Timo Kahlen. Simile, 2006
Rubber boots (Wellingtons) suspended in metal frames,
nine small loudspeakers, nine channel sound composition
imitating birds' voices and other mimetical,
only seemingly 'natural' sounds

Exhibited at "Deutscher Klangkunst-Preis 2006", Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl and "Sound Art 2006" / art cologne

Timo Kahlen. Fire, 2008

Suitcase filled with
the sound of fire

"Tonspur expanded: The Loudspeaker", Vienna 2010 - 2011; Strictly Berlin 2009; "ROMA", Rome 2008 and private collection / Italy. Courtesy Dieci.Due!, Milano








Timo Kahlen. Diodenzwitschern, 2006

Site-specific sound installation, proposal for
the German national Sound Art Prize 2006
(Deutscher Klangkunst-Preis), based on the
amazing utterances of a nightingale recorded on site.
Four channel audio composition

Four sculptural, ring-shaped speaker elements to be installed
encircling the stems and branches of trees in close proximity
to the Skulpturenmuseum in Marl. Intimate sounds, based on the
utterances of a nightingale recorded directly on site,
permutate from speaker to speaker, from tree to tree.
The song of the nightingale - a bird known for its amazing
ability to imitate complex sounds of its immediate environment -
has been disected, reorganized and carefully reshaped,
creating a soundscape that seems synthetical and mechanical,
yet strangely represents and refers to its origin.
Presented to the jury of the German national "Sound Art Prize"
as an interactive model at http:///www.timo-kahlen.de/dioden/

See http://www.timo-kahlen.de/dioden/

Timo Kahlen. Zewidewit Zizidäh, 2001 - 2002

Sound installation based on the scientific,
ornithological description of birds' songs,
on the mimetical (re-) construction of (and difference to)
nature through language: three large glass cylinders
contain small loudspeakers presenting scientific
descriptions of common local birds' voice and song.

"Timo Kahlen: Zewidewit Zizidaeh", Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin 2002
and "Der Gesang ist eine muehsam klingende Folge von knarzenden, knirschenden
und kurz floetenden Toenen", Universitaet der Kuenste Berlin 2006.

Timo Kahlen. Transfer, 2004
Can images be translated into sound ?
This sound sculpture is based on the sound of images
of a model of the gallery space itself, transferred via modem
from Timo Kahlen / Berlin to Ian Andrews / Sydney
when developing their net art work Sound Drift (2005).
The modem sounds recorded while transferring the images
are now played back in the space itself,
engaging two cardboard structures, abstract black boxes,
in a complex, aleatoric digital dialogue.

>>> see more sound sculptures (page 2/3 and 3/3) >>>...

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