ST-LAB 2021
Sensory Threshold LAB 2021 - OHRIVERSUM
EXHIBITION July 5th to August 20th, 2021
A project initiated by
Katherina Heil in collaboration with Alexander Heil and Rik
Möhlmann at De Fabriek Eindhoven.
‘As a particle of the atmosphere is
never lost, so sound is never lost. A strain of music or a
simple tone will vibrate in the air forever and ever, decreasing
according to a fixed ratio. The diffusion of the agitation
extends in all directions, like the waves in a pool, but the ear
is unable to detect it beyond a certain point. It is well known
that some individuals can distinguish sounds which to others
under precisely similar circumstances are wholly lost. Thus the
fault is not in the sound itself, but in our organ of hearing,
and a tone once in existence is always in existence.’ [Florence
McLandburgh The Automaton Ear 1876]
I am walking on the beach. The wind swirls around my body. The
waves wash the shore, crashing onto the land in an endless
phasing repetition, creating an oscillating swell of noise. I
encounter a sea shell. I lift it towards my ear – a maze of
sound reveals itself to me. We live immersed in a world of
sound. However, most of the sounds are filtered out by the shape
of our ear.
With this project we want to include ourselves deeply within
this world, which extends beyond our daily experience. And thus
we began our intuitive search for the relations between the ear,
its form, and the resulting sound experience. Eventually, all
human ears are built using the same blueprint. Nevertheless,
every ear is uniquely shaped like a fingerprint and thus
influences our subjective acoustic experience of the world. One
could say, that listening beings all together live in their
subjective sonic worlds. Therefore, we invented the concept of
the Ohriversum (German ‘Ear-verse’) in which the entirety of all
listening beings establishes a spatial constellation of these
individual worlds. ‘Ohriversum’ takes place as part of the
‘Sensory Threshold LAB’. A group of artists exploring the
inaudible dimensions of our reality, forming new collaborations,
narratives and metaphors.
concept: KATHERINA HEIL, ALEXANDER HEIL, RIK MÖHLMANN
contributing artists: SARAH ROSE GUITIAN NEDERLOF, FARZANÉ NOURI,
GIJSJE HEEMSKERK, KIM DAVID BOTS
PUBLICATION and SCREENING
dates and locations will be announced very soon!
01.01.2022 NEWS: We
are currently working on a movie and a catalogue about this project
and our time at De Fabriek Eindhoven.
