10” vinyl transparent – Tonometer

The project of Christian Skjødt was initially a sound installation made for an 18th century wine cellar in the Riga botanic garden. The author is inspired by the site-specific context and evokes all the energy of the place, which originally comes from the sun, to later softly spread all over inside the building and into the soil. The Danish artist and composer Skjødt had already explored the aspects of the places that are spatial and physical, and also temporary and possible to be interpreted with different, more or less objective, data. Sometimes, for these experimentations, Skjødt uses some self-made electronics tools. For example, in Illumination he translates the external events into sounds thanks to some small solar cells according to some fixed parameters. Inside the cellar the sounds are subject to an additional and “spontaneous” spatialization due to the vibes of the sound waves refracting on the brick domes. The inspiration is initially focused on nature: see for example the sun and the small optoelectonic devices located almost mimeticly on a field, which stand up like weird plants. Later all of this becomes something else, still led from the inside by a primary and essential technological equipment. We would not say that the guidelines of the powers and bodies of nature work regardless of the human intentions, because the electrical circuits definitely don’t grow up on the trees and the special architecture of the wine cellar is due to the work of its designer and the people who built it. The photo-voltaic technology was born only in the early sixties, although it originates from the intuition Charles Fritz had in 1883. That result was a first 30 square centimeters solar cell, whose size was not so different from what Skjødt uses in this work. “Illumination” was commissioned by Skaņu Mežs, an adventurous, innovative, experimental and cutting-edge music festival, that has taken place in Riga since 2003. All the elements of this special project keep their own coherence and are presented into two different tracks. Both last 12 minutes and were recorded at different times. The edition is available in two different formats, digital and transparent 10” vinyl, produced by Tonometer, the label found by Christian Skjødt. It’s a precious proof of a significant audio-art generated as a result of programming sensitive pulses.

 

Christian Skjødt – Illumination