< neture.org > Black Clouds a sound installation by Jan Brueggemeier, August 2007, Kuenstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf (D)
..>intro ...>soundtrack_#01 ...>specifications ...>making-of ...>credits

loudspeaker close-up

...>AUDIO:
Black Clouds soundtrack #01:
Love is in the Air (34:05)

recording of the room acoustic (stereo)

download:
[mp3] (about 39 MB) or [ogg]

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..>intro ...>soundtrack_#01 ...>specifications ...>making-of ...>credits

.Intro:

Black Clouds

as a topic clouds trigger manifold associations and are a largely known cultural phenomenon.

As-Sahab, the name of the alleged media production unit of Al-Qaeda means "The Cloud" in Arabic.
in the old testament is reported that god liked to hide his/her appearance behind a cloud when calling Moses on the seventh day of the creation of the earth.

the cloud also serves as an analogy for radio and the more recent phenomenon of wifi and particular wireless culture. it describes how the reception area is spread out.
as well as it leads to first days of the radio, when people experienced radio as a god-like appearance - a disembodied voice addressed them directly.

radio, today, is on one hand a synonym for popular culture and mass distribution.
on the other hand it can be tagged with politics of territory and strategic warfare. It may be surprising but to a certain degree radio is culturally and technologically rooted in war and military invention - similar like the Internet.

along with this installation a series of soundtracks shall follow:

Love is in the Air is the initiation and first issue of the series of soundtracks dedicated to the Black Clouds installation.

Love is in the Air is composed of bits and fragments of recordings of the Lebanese radio dial during my stay in Beirut and an audio collage of sound bits of popular love songs that wildly and at certain points desperately spin between the right and the left channel of the audio-signal.
here i re-used materials that i originally prepared as a soundtrack for a video installation by the German-Israeli artist Naomi Tereza Salmon. this work was based on a series of interviews with diverse people on their particular relationship between love and music.

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..>intro ...>soundtrack_#01 ...>specifications ...>making-of ...>credits

.Specifications:

"Black Clouds" has been set up as a sound installation with 6 discrete audio channels.

the two black clouds consist out of about 420 mini loudspeakers (from 0.3 to 1 watt).

the loudspeakers are subsumed in four sub-groups.
the big black cloud covers audio channel 1 to 3.
the small black cloud displays the fourth audio channel.

as well as for a more "holistic" room acoustic 2 transducer loudspeakers -also known as "butt-kicks"- are installed inside the room:
one is mounted under a sheet metal locker in a corner of the room.
the other one is placed at the opposite wall.

the blinking red diodes are a "reversed" engineered bicycle back light.

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..>intro ...>soundtrack_#01 ...>specifications ...>making-of ...>credits

.Credits:

institutional support:

- Cultural Foundation Thuringia (D)
- Kuenstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf (D)

photos of the installation were taken by:

- Elina Julin
- Alexandra Gaul

people:

- Naomi Tereza Salmon (NTS Randomizer) for commissioning me to design the soundtrack for her video-art installation "bUrNiNgBlUeSol", curated by Nike Wagner (Kunstfest Weimar 2005). bits of the materials prepared for her work re-appeared in this first soundtrack "Love is in the Air".

- Georg Haensdieke for providing the blinking red diodes

- Franka Kassner, Kerstin Gnauck, Miguel Rothschild, Mr. Hauptvogel and Mr. Hoffmann for their helping hands while mounting the installation.

- and all the other residents at Schloss Wiepersdorf for the thrilling badminton matches and their criticism.

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..>intro ...>soundtrack_#01 ...>specifications ...>making-of ...>credits

. The Making-of ...

making-of 1 making-of 2 making-of 3

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..>intro ...>soundtrack_#01 ...>specifications ...>making-of ...>credits