Stationsraum für assimilativen Zahlwitz is an audio installation made by Thom Kubli (supported by the Academy of Media Arts in Köln). Ten jelly cubes are placed in a room symmetrically with reference to the walls. In each cube there is a voice coil that sends the audio signals into the gelatinous body. Entering the room, the viewer feels like he’s immersed in an acoustically animated environment. This effect is obtained by Kubli by hanging some loudspeakers on the external wall surfaces. This way, the vibrations are sent into the physical space while the sound source is hidden, and the viewer instinctively concentrates his attention on the cubes, from which emanates a sort of mantra. Each cube, in fact, reads a number series whose numbers and speed change continuously. The gelatinous objects can be touched, and this bring the experience onto a physical, tactile plane. The viewer feels like he’s touching the numerical sequences and surrenders to the alternation between virtual and material, physical and psychic space, body and mind. Kubli’s installation can therefore be interpreted as the attempt to push to its limit the dialectical tension between the elements of human perception by reinterpreting aesthetically a typical contemporary environment, that is, a space where the interaction is mediated by technology. Moreover, it’s interesting to notice how jelly, collagen, the basal membrane, that is, the most abundant protein in mammals, is ironically used by Kubli as a means of communication, in a way not dissimilar from what the cosmetic industry does.

Vito Campanelli