Gelöschte Masse (“Deleted Masses”) by Hannes Seidl is a brilliant sound artwork using audio manipulation in a political way, through a sophisticated aesthetics. It’s a three channel sound installation consisting of five audio recordings from protests taken in different cities (Istanbul, Athens, Berlin, Madrid and New York). These recordings have been then skilfully compressed by an inverted mp3 filter. So instead of retaining the most audible frequencies, as occurs in usual mp3 compression process, there have been kept usually unheard frequencies. Furthermore, they have been submitted both to a programmed filter to leave only one for each sample, and a “noise gate” which leaves only the “peaks” of the recording. The result is that most of the samples have been erased and that almost all the spoken parts cannot be understood anymore, but the protest aural presence is kept in its aural essence, sublimated more than ever through its splendid sound dynamics.

 

Gelöschte Masse – Three Channel Sound Installation