„Spirans“ Sound installation from Kirsten Reese

As part of the exhibition Haus-Rucker-Co. Breathing Zones(06.10.2023 – 25.02.2024), the artist Kirsten Reese has created a sound installation in the Lentos open area, which is the result of a profound engagement with the work of this group of artists and architects. The contrast between natural and artificial living space, which Haus-Rucker-Co have increasingly addressed since the 1970s, and the importance of our atmosphere as a protective shell – and one that is itself deserving of protection – form essential starting points for Reese’s composition. 

The sound installation on the enclosed forecourt of the museum envelops the listeners like an acoustic shell by combining the sounds of breathing with the mechanical tones of medical ventilators. The acoustic and architectural characteristics of the open area are taken up while sound movements are created in the space. Through prolonged reverberation, the sounds acquire their own character and colouring. 

Recalling the utopian ideas found in the early works of Haus-Rucker-Co, Reese uses the futuristic sounds of the Fairlight synthesizer – one of the first digital musical instruments developed in the late 1970s. Part of the synthesiser’s extensive sound archive are natural noises and atmospheric sounds that Reese has further electronically transformed and ​“artificialised”. Supplemented by sounds of rivers and water, recordings of amphibians from the Danube region, as well as sinusoidal tone melodies, their interplay raises questions about vibrancy and expression in the nature-based, electronic sound material. In this way, Reese creates an intense acoustic experience that probes the interplay between nature and artificiality, as well as the relationship between human beings and their environment. 

Kirsten Reese (*1968, GER) 

lives and works in Berlin. As a composer and sound artist, she composes for electronic media and unusual sensory settings, spaces and loudspeaker constellations. In her research-intensive projects, she combines archive recordings, field recordings and electronic sounds to create immersive soundscapes. Kirsten Reese is a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin [Berlin Academy of the Arts]. She teaches electroacoustic composition at the Berlin University of the Arts.