Ortsklang Marl Mitte / Site-Sound Marl Mitte
Sound-light-installation at a railway station
U-topia is, not only literally, no place. The non-existence of a place is an essential quality of Marl. The train station “Marl Centre” is covered by a concrete hall which has no function: it does not serve as a waiting room since the waiting are all standing on the station platform below. No train tickets are sold here, there is no information service; the hall opens in a gaping void. The sound material was won entirely from this location, the train station itself.
2002- Station Marl Mitte
- German Sond Art Award
- Skulpturenmuseum Marl
For the first part, the sound of the bars in the side walls, of two lengths, hence two pitches (deep f and middle high f), which formed the sound background in the concrete hall by means of four loudspeakers and 2 subwoofers distributed in the space.
The other sound material consists of graffiti inscriptions from the waiting room on the train platform where the conflicts of the locale are laconically and bluntly expressed: conflicts between the right and left, foreigners and Germans, adults and youth; between declarations of love and of despair.
These sayings were collected and then spoken to tape by young people from Marl. The recordings were arranged into a voice choir which sounded out of twelve loudspeakers hanging from the ceiling of the hall. What previously adorned the walls unnoticed now became an unmediated acoustic presence for the passers-by.
