CD + Book – Gruenrekorder

Christiane Prehn e Wolfgang Meyer – aka KG Augenstern – have transformed a Anuschka ship into a traveling sound laboratory. In July 2014, the ship set sail from Berlin in the direction of France. On the way the ship encountered bridges of different kinds running across rivers and canals. They devised special tentacles consisting of long metal arms installed on board the ship in order to be able to scratch the bridges, revealing sound profiles created by their shapes and contours. The result of this unique sound research – which reflected the shape of the bridges, their practical use and their type of construction – have been presented in audio-visual performances throughout the journey, in specially chosen places along the banks of the river. The tentacles concept – as an extension of the same listening skills of the field recordists – recurs in all the duo’s work that has implemented this approach. It also features in fixed installations on the theme of scratching and structural tension, static and dynamic. These experiments are presented in the last two tracks: “Tentacles Synthesis” and “Tentacles 2”, made at Galerie Huit in Arles, and in Valence, in a specially adapted warehouse. It’s precisely these fluvial tracks that are the most interesting and rich in suggestion. Of particular note is the track dedicated to Berlin, crossing the metropolis on a windy day, navigating the Spree and Havel, along 30 bridges from the eastern to the western city boundaries, recording atmospheres in locations imbued by natural elements and background noises coming from the surrounding streets, creating a tactile sound, almost sculptural in its frictional effects, which always return to spaces and architectures. The sounds are literally scraped from the surface but also diluted in the flow of the narration that of each crossing.

 

KG Augenstern – Tentacles 2