TONSPUR_workshop: Angewandte/TransArts Private Dots and Public Clouds

8-channel sound installation by Maxim Brezhnev, Christopher Frieß, Marlene Fröhlich, Chris Izsák, Luise Lutz, Luize Nežberte, Elisa Pezza, Leonhard Pill, Julian Siffert.

As the current situation demands that we isolate ourselves, stay in our homes and do not share public space, we have to create digital spaces via technological devices and software in order to connect and communicate with others. During this time, these virtual spaces are seen as replacements of public spaces. They are intersections of our private surroundings, allowing the creation of alternative modes of gathering and, more deeply, of possible forms of publicness within the privateness. How could we then record these virtual spaces within our homes?

“Private Dots and Public Clouds” is based on a recording of a silent online meeting using a video conference software. During this meeting, we refrained from talking and we tried to listen to the space, that emerged out of the overlapping sounds of all our individual environments within our laptops speakers. Every participant has recorded this meeting from their own laptop. These recordings, whose sounds and rhythms are modulated and filtered by everyone's respective internet connection, result in differently sounding perspectives of the same shared virtual place. Therein, we tried to portray our personal contexts within the current situation. By remaining silent and allowing the background noises of our flats to come to the foreground, we tried to compose both a situation of collective listening as well as sonic traces of absence, of loneliness and non-communication, as these virtual spaces are usually created specifically to communicate through language. Reflecting on how to perform the situation of forced isolation was the aim of this project.

The visual material shown in the lightboxes relates to the recorded private spaces, pointing to the sound sources audible in the recordings. The accompanying postcard shows a map of the locations of each of the participants based on the distances and directions from the main focal point, the TONSPUR_passage. Ultimately, the passage with its eight speakers is a transmitter to actual public space: from private dots to public clouds.

Maxim Brezhnev, born in Toglatti, Russian Federation in 1989, lives and works in Vienna and Prague • Christopher Frieß, born in Kufstein, Tyrol in 1998, lives and works in Angath and Vienna • Marlene Fröhlich, born in St. Veit an der Glan, Kärnten in 1989, lives and works in Vienna • Chris Izsák, born in Vienna in 1998, lives and works in Vienna and Plowdiw, Bulgaria • Luise Lutz, born in Linz in 2000, lives and works in Linz and Vienna • Luīze Nežberte, born in Riga, Latvia in 1998, lives and works in Vienna • Elisa Pezza, born in Rovereto, Italy in 1998, lives and works in Vienna and Bolzano, Italy • Leonhard Pill, born in Munich in 1987, lives and works in Vienna • Julian Siffert, born in Vienna in 1993, lives and works in Vienna.

Sujet © Christopher Frieß