Bill Fontana

Acoustical Visions of the River Mur, 2017

Image Credits

Location

Kunsthaus Graz

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About the
Project

"Acoustical Visions of the River Mur" is a new, site-specific work by pioneering sound artist Bill Fontana that is developed for the Kunsthaus Graz.


Acoustical Visions

The work thereby becoming the second, semipermanent sound sculpture that forms part of the ´living architecture´ of the archigram indepted biomorphic exhibition hall (the first being the Sound piece by Max Neuhaus that has been running since its implementation during the opening of the building in 2003, Time Piece Graz).

The multimedia work utilizes hypersonic speakers—a visually as well as acoustically engaging technology and bring the unseen world of the turbulent river Mur into the range of perception of visitors.

In the site specific media installation the house itself – specifically its fantastic blastpipes in the courtyard - become an audio as well as a videoinstrument thereby relating to its architectural concept as a living exhibition machine. Working with detailed images as well as sounds an ongoing and everchanging musical composition is transmitted to the architectural situation.

Through the reduction of the white water noise that you naturally hear on the side of the Mur the house itself becomes the transmitter of a new perspective onto unknown dimensions of an omnipresent sculptural material.

As a Kunsthalle the Kunsthaus Graz usually does not collect but is a place of artistic production and research. Starting with Max Neuhaus in 2003 there also has been a specific interest in sound art and its influence on perception as a whole. The work has been part of the biomorphic architecture for twelve years and it feels high time to take this first venture into the still highly unaccustomed acquisition of a permanently producing work of sound art a step further into the experimental research ground of the institution dedicated to artistic production of knowledge.