Silent Echoes | Dachstein

In 2019, Notre-Dame—the “soul of Paris” and a symbol of European culture – caught fire. The bells were spared, but fell silent for years. Silently, they “listen” to the hustle and bustle of the city and the sounds of the construction site – until they ring out again in 2024 to mark the cathedral’s reopening. American sound artist Bill Fontana makes the bells audible through vibration sensors, transmitting the sounds to the ice caves on the Dachstein and reflecting them in a duet with the sounds of the melting glacier – an impressive artistic statement on climate change and the fragility of culture. This site-specific duet forms the basis for a “Sound Bridge,” which will be broadcast live to the MuseumsQuartier and other exhibition venues in Europe and beyond.

Bill Fontana (born April 25, 1947, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American sound artist who studied philosophy and music at John Carroll University and The New School in New York City, as well as at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Bill Fontana has been using sound as a sculptural medium since the late 1960s. Since 1976, he has referred to his works as sound sculptures. “Metropolis Cologne” (60 min), “Metropolis Stockholm 2” (60 min), and “Satellite Soundbridge Cologne–San Francisco” (60 min) are sound portraits of major cities produced by WDR. He has created over 50 sound sculptures and 20 radio sculptures, some of which are intercontinental. Bill Fontana’s sound sculptures have been installed in many locations: New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, Alaska, Berlin, Cologne, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Thailand, Australia, and Japan. Since the 1990s, Fontana has been using airborne sound transducers (microphones), liquid sound transducers (hydrophones), and accelerometers in his works.

Curator: Wolfgang Schlag
Co-curator: Peter Brugger

A project of The European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024 in cooperation with IRCAM, OÖ KulturEXPO Anton Bruckner 2024, the Ars Electronica Festival, the Goiserer Musiktage, Kunsthaus Graz, and the MuseumsQuartier Vienna.
With support from: Institut français d’Autriche