Sound

Waves on the shore of our ears.

The background image on this page shows the internal structure of a distant thunderclap I recorded some time ago.

It shows impressively how we are constantly surrounded by the most intricate gossamer - or the most massive breakers - of sounds.

All my life I was fascinated and deeply in love with sound, from the deceivingly simple-seeming oscillations of a guitar string to the manifold orchestra of a forest after spring rain, from a child voice singing in absentminded play to an elaborately crafted piece of music, from a simple sine-wave in a synth-oscillator to the multilayered turkish-delight of a sound designer you can play for minutes by just holding one key.

Our ears are the one sense that we can never really "close" or shut down, that never really sleeps. Yes, we can get used to certain noises, but it is an active process of filtering that still keeps part of us busy - we needed to hear that twig breaking under the foot of a predator at all times in our not-so-distant history. So we can be totally exhausted after a day in a noisy surrounding.

But sound and music also can totally transform us and speak to us on levels we normally have no access to. We are in instant tears from a beautiful melody or voice, we recognise a song after just one or two notes played and if it is connected to a memory, we get teleported in time and space. Our bodies are moved by the rhythms we hear...

My own work with sound is often an exploration of spaces and environments that - like some of my graphic work - are at the border between artificial and natural. In one piece the music is played by generative code I wrote, in another, one flute line is the only input to a system where all other sounds are derived from that same flute line through effects, creating an almost natural, forest like space...

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SoundWaves