Susurrus Light, Aggregate I, 2014, Werders Wohnzimmer Karlsruhe
From 2014 until 2017, Felix Buchholz, Jonas Beile, and Sascha Jungbauer worked together as LAYTBEUIS, creating installation-based pieces exploring art and technology. The acutely differing backgrounds and experiences, ranging from philosophy and economy to photography and graphic design all the way to music and counterculture, led to an interdisciplinary approach that allowed for an open development without rigid roles.
The work process consisted of experiments, analyses, and discussions. Intuitions were assessed through intellectual debate and tested in physical space. All works by LAYTBEUIS were published in collective authorship. Our art engaged with technical machines and commodities. Through interconnection, interference, and feedback, they became complex systems; self-contained worlds which, without our human input, permuted and seemed to become alive.
Installation: Microphones, fluorescent light tubes, mixer, amplifier, dc-signal power control, speakers, measurements: variable
In the installation of Susurrus Lights, Aggregate conventional fluorescent lamps are dissolved from their functional and efficient determination. In deficiency and excess states they release their seemingly organic momentum.
The characteristic sounds from switching on and off the fluorescent lamps – a subliminal sensation in our everyday experience – are put into focus by being picked up by microphones and played back live through loudspeakers.
The extracted audio signal from one lamp serves as voltage control for each other lamp to constitute a functional circuit. It generates continuously evolving rhythmic patterns of sound and light impulses. Whereas on a structural level they resemble figures of generative computer music, it is the very constellation of material components which causes this audiovisual chain reaction.
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The idea of information, which is read out, quantified, interpreted, and finally processed, is challenged by encountering an unconventional setup of devices that functions based on a perpetual transformation of energy states. Light and sound inextricably originate from the same entity and create the impression of an object-to-object relation, which, due to the irregular, distorted correlation of its entities, always produces new patterns; a self-engendering machine with an unpredictable development.
Incorporating the material of the fluorescent lamp Susurrus Lights, Aggregate, evokes a model of progress and efficiency that is no longer valid in today’s conceptions but its role has shifted towards functioning as a symbol for urban decay. This decay is also reflected in the overuse of the materials, which adds another layer of transformation to the work. During a longer period of an exhibition, the sound character can change from harmonic glass-like tones to more harsh and violent eruptions, whereas on the visual level the afterglow of flickering tubes intensifies.
Every instance of this work series is a site-
specific intervention in which the architecture of the respective space is fragmented and perceptually reconstructed in the ever-changing rhythm of the fluorescent apparatus.
Steel plates, steel strings, electro-magnets, electro-magnetic pick-ups, amplifier, mixer
Two steel plates are positioned in space as if they were about to fall, but their dynamic momentum has been paused: Connected by strings, they are forming an interdependent static entity. The plates are set in motion by electro-magnets using the hum of the mains voltage. The reactions of the strings are picked up and made audible and the signal is used to alter the frequency at which the plates are excited. The result is a complex swinging system that seeks a balance never to be reached: Due to superpositions and cancellations, the audible drone and the visible shaking are constantly subject to minor changes, resulting in the impression that Interference seems to be stuck in a fragment of time eternally.
Scratched CD and DVDs, DVD-players, monitors, cd-player, speakers
The starting point of the installation 2134_wake_me_up is a found, worn, and scratched CD of Björk. Playing the original piece Pagan Poetry the CD player is only stuttering, resulting in a new interpretation of the piece. This principle is reiterated at the visual level and further radicalized.
The process of decay of the music video is accelerated by the active physical manipulation of DVDs. By multiple repetitions of the procedure: manipulating, playing, and recording, the DVD players create heavily modified visual fragments.
The weaknesses of the machine in conjunction with the unsuitable information carrier are understood as an artistic potential while rejecting an expressive artistic gesture.
