Timo Kahlen. Sound sculptures and installations                                                (page 3/3)

Nominated for the German national Sound Art Prize 2006

Timo Kahlen. Bags of Bees (Venice, 2009)
Sound sculpture: Paper bags enclosing the meandering
sound of a swarm of bees. Casello delle Polveri, Venezia 2009

From a series of synaesthetical sound installations ('Earcatchers')
realized as part of the scholarship by Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn 2010 :

Timo Kahlen. Bits, 2010

Percussive, pulsing sounds project from
sculptural loudspeakers at 3,50 m height,
echoing from the walls. Their tripods surround
a fragile Venetian glass chandelier in the exhibition space.

Multi-channel sound installation
for "Timo Kahlen: Noise & Beauty", Stiftung Starke, Berlin 2010

Timo Kahlen. BEWARE !, 2010
Proposal for Metamatic Research Initiative, Amsterdam 2010

Generative, multi-channel sound installation
based on the sound of fierce dogs: ferociously, madly barking
at the passer-by. Perceptible vibration of steel object





   


Timo Kahlen
Tanz für Insekten (Dance for Insects), 2010

Dead insects (objets trouvés) shivering, shuffling
and floating on the membranes of two loudspeakers.
Low frequency sound, vibration and random movement
of the insects, that seem to be more alive than dead

Sound installation at Luftmuseum Amberg
and at Stiftung Starke, Berlin 2010



            



Timo Kahlen. Datenaustausch, 2010

Spoon, small loudspeakers and audio components on a plate.
From a series of conceptual photographs
for synaesthetical sound works, 40 x 50 cm

"Noise & Beauty", Stiftung Starke, Berlin 2010



     










Timo Kahlen. (LOCATING), 2010





A pair of rubber boots carefully positioned in the
gallery space. Electrical cables fill the resonant volumes with sound :
pulsing, crackling, hissing, grinding noise bounces back and forth
inside and from within the two rubber boots.
One foot set slightly forward, the rubber boots seem
ready to meander, to move on... - yet they remain static,
immobile, caught in situ : forming a subtle and vibrating 'still life',
an acoustic miniature of two objects taking on personality.
Ascertaining, locating and repositioning their existence
in a changing and mobile society.

First installed at "Media Scapes", Zagreb 2010
curated by Heiko Daxl & Ingeborg Fülepp








Timo Kahlen. Watch Your Step, 2010

Circling, cascading sounds travel
up and down a spiraling staircase.
Site-specific sound installation
for the entrance stairway
of the gallery at Concent Art, Berlin

Timo Kahlen. Audio Clusters, 1991 - 2006

Series of sculptural models
(variable dimension and combination)
for projected sound installations.
Cardboard, paint and loudspeakers

Collection of the artist

Timo Kahlen. Infusion, 2010

Minimal sound of the slight vibration
of several small piezo loudspeakers
against the porcellaine rim of a tea-cup.
Instability of the setup ...
Sound sculpture at "Timo Kahlen: Noise & Beauty", Stiftung Starke, Berlin 2010

   


Timo Kahlen. Brût, 2010

Mainly silent sound sculpture.
Aluminum and audio cables on white pedestal
Sound sculpture at "Timo Kahlen: Noise & Beauty", Stiftung Starke, Berlin 2010






Five Interactive Sound Works
Timo Kahlen. Audio Dust, 2011
Supported by a scholarship of Stiftung Kunstfonds, Germany 2010.
Collections orf Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University / USA,
the ZKM Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe and the artist.

http://www.staubrauschen.de/audiodust/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/signal/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/fromscratch/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/carpe/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/delete/





‘Audio Dust’ is about the beauty of noise. An earcatching, sculptural
cluster of sound. It is based on the image of a round object
made of artificial fur, a soft, tactile part of a microphone
(generally used to protect the microphone from wind
in the recording process). Fragments of noise & beauty seem to have
attached to the fur. In several aspects, “Audio Dust“ is a psycho-acoustical
trap for the senses, tempting the viewer to virtually stroke the warm, soft,
‘purring‘, abstract, round object enclosing layers of sound. With references
to the Futurist ‘intonarumori‘ and to Pierre Schaeffer‘s ‘musique concrete‘,
generating the composition of sound and vibration with the cursor
(activating sounds as the mouse rolls over or clicks hidden,
static and moving interfaces) the work generates a complex
synaesthetical experience.




Timo Kahlen. Signal-To-Noise, 2011





The work ‘Signal-To-Noise’ relates to the history of recording media, to the Vinyl LP.
An analog object, covered with scratches, with dirt and sound is seen rotating in space.
The interactive sound object 'Signal-To-Noise' relates the unintentional mistake,
the deviation from the technical norm, to the artist‘s process of recording
and playing back acoustic signals. What can be heard, as the viewer generates
multiple layers of sound from invisible interfaces hidden beneath the flash projection
of the scratched and ruptured rotating surface, is a grinding, dirty, dusty static noise,
which leaves little room for the desired acoustic signal itself.
The unbalanced signal-to-noise-ratio of what is desired and what is recorded,
is the works main principle of design.




Timo Kahlen. From Scratch, 2011





‘From Scratch’, an hommage to the fragility and transience of all life,
presents the ephemeral surface of thin ice. As if walking on a brittle, fragile surface,
the viewer encounters splintering, slushing, cascading sequences of sound,
as he moves the cursor and mouse across the interactive surface at his own, individual pace.
Thus, the work develops individually, is generated as the viewer moves across,
pauses or clicks at the responsive texture of the sound object.




Timo Kahlen. Undo / Delete, 2011





The viewer's cursor meanders across a white void, an empty page.
His movements generate minimal visual marks and acoustic incidents,
that seem to avoid / to flee the presence of the cursor
- as can be inferred from the sound of ripping, crumbling,
revising, tearing and deleting information
hidden on the blank page.




Timo Kahlen. Carpe Diem, 2011





An image of vanitas, a ripe yellow fruit (a quince), showing first signs of
deterioration, decomposition and mold, is at the base of the work
'Carpe Diem' (2011) by Timo Kahlen. The soft, fragile surface of the object is enclosed
by particles of possibly organic noise and vibration, activated by the viewer
as he moves his cursor across the responsive,
interactive texture of the sounding object.



For headphones or speakers.The five works develop individually,
are generated - always different - as the viewer moves across, pauses
or clicks at the responsive texture of the sound objects.
Roll over & click to generate the audio work at your own pace.


Supported by a scholarship of Stiftung Kunstfonds, Germany 2010.
Collections orf Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University / USA,
the ZKM Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe and the artist.

http://www.staubrauschen.de/audiodust/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/signal/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/fromscratch/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/carpe/
http://www.staubrauschen.de/delete/









Timo Kahlen. Bits & Pieces, 2011
4'08", stereo
for radio transmission
The Radius, Chicago

Bits & Pieces (2011) lures us into an earcatching, evocative sonic terrain
- and can be seen as an acoustic metaphor of current political, conceptual
and economic crisis and instability. At first impression nothing more than
the haphazard accumulation of static noise, dirt and interference
on the listener's radio, the radiophonic work "Bits & Pieces" soon turns out to be
the precise acoustic image of a protagonist's footsteps on a brittle, fragile,
inconsistent surface: literally and conceptually walking on 'breaking ground',
audibly de-constructing, re-evaluating, tearing, revising and editing
his concept of the world.

Focussing on the destructive process of creating 'progress',
this conceptual work was made especially for local radio transmission
on The Radius, Chicago (December 2011).

Timo Kahlen. Breaking Ground
Orvieto / Italy 2009
Multi-channel site-specific work

Ruptured, crooked, uneven natural stone
floor of studio space at Orvieto (Italy);
Bits and pieces of  fragmentary sound meandering
from speaker to speaker across the floor.

Atelier Aperti, Orvieto 2009. Courtesy of Susanne Kessler

          
Timo Kahlen. Your Journey. Orvieto / Italy 2009

Two loudspeakers propped against
the vertical plane of the wall project the sound of
two feet crunching, grinding their way through deep snow :
slowing down, taking up speed as the brittle snow
offers varying resistance to the progression
of the artist's movement. Visitors approached the sound work
on a road filled with gravel: creating their own sounds on their way.
Installed at 38° C in the shade for Atelier Aperti,
Orvieto (Italy) in 2009.

Courtesy studio of Susanne Kessler / Atelier Aperti, Orvieto 2009









Timo Kahlen.
(180 min of Wind), 1996

Series of Audio Tape Sculptures








Timo Kahlen. TWITTER, 2006 - 2010
Proposal for temporary sound installation
at "Klankenbos", northern Belgium

In Dutch, Flemish and - as the 'lingua franca' - in English,
metal sound objects attached to the stems and branches
of trees at Klankenbos send out ornithological, scientific descriptions
of the songs, voices and behaviour of local bird populations,
common to the region at the borderline of Dutch and
Flemish interests. A work about cultural difference and concensus
- as expressed in the differing perception of local nature;
using the identical birds' utterances, translated into
three different local languages, as its conceptual example.

See related proposal "Diodenzwitschern", Skulpturenmuseum Marl 2006

>>> see more sound sculptures (page 1/3 and 2/3) >>>...

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