OR-BITS
Emerging artist: Jiří Suchánek (Prague, Czech Republic)
Residency place: Openspace.Innsbruck (Innsbruck, Austria)
Practice: sound art, new media art, public, art & science
Local artist: ludwig technique (Johannes Payr) and Christian Schwarzer
Curated by: Danijela Oberhofer Tonkovic
Additional works for the “Heart of Noise” festival: Klangbäume and Pulse33
“Sonic Worlds of the Between” explored the “unheard” sonic dimension of the City. The artists were working with the collected sounds of the city and made audible what sometimes in everyday life is not heard! The challenge was to detect new or existing potentials of public spaces around us and set them up in the way to tell a story.
Jiří’s approach allowed covering the interface between sound, society/space and technology. His trans-disciplinary and multi-layered artistic methodology, technically skilled work, and ways of reflecting and engaging surroundings made the curators very positively curious from the start. Incredible power that produces even more amazing ideas!
Jiří Suchánek was proposed by the partner organization Prague Biennale. The Czech sound and media artist, musician and multimedia experimenter, mostly focused on building interactive audio-light installations in natural or public spaces. His artistic approach is synthetic: in his work, he combines sound, light, sculpture, electronics and codes with carefully selected locations. Jiří explores the relationship between nature, technology and the durability of electronic media. His main works are focused on sound, expanded or articulated by other media in unexpected social situations. Jiří studied video-multimedia performance at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Technical University of Brno, completed a residency at the STEIM Foundation in Amsterdam and was awarded a scholarship for the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Currently he teaches audio technology and history of sound art in Brno.
During the residency, Jiří created and implemented his 3 artistic ideas: OR-bits for the presentation within the district Wilten, Klangbäume algorithmic sound-installation in the trees in front of Haus der Musik (House of music), and an audio-visual modular installation in the foyer of the same building.
OR-bits
Throughout his residency in Innsbruck, Jiří was concentrated on a topic of circles, time and distance of human surrounding. The Interactive sound object OR-bits is the product of such observations. It was made of steel, plexiglass, ldr, led, accelerometers, magnets, teensy MCU, amp, transducer and speakers. The main sonic material for the object was sound – sounds recorded in the city, field-recordings created during the workshop “Sonic Map of the City” he held on during several days end of May. During this workshop, Jiří offered the participants to explore and listen the city differently, to rediscover and record with new tools that they learned to create during the DYI part of the workshop. Finally, he rounded the story up with an integration of short interviews with community members into the installation.
Each imaginary “orbit” consists of sound recorded in proportional distance from selected installation space – one sound in close, second sound 10m far away, third sound 100m away… 2 km far away. The sonic structure was open to creative collaboration of visitors. The interactive sound installation OR-bits consists of a light pendulum and connected sound sensors, which reproduce recordings of the city of Innsbruck in an experimental way. The pendulum movement is controlled by the observer random or manually.
Understanding the question where he stands what is surrounding him, discovering new principle of interaction and controlling the sound was the crucial part of the Or-bits installation.
Klangbäume sound-installation
Klangbäume sound-installation was additional successful cooperation with the project the Heart of Noise festival and Haus der Musik. Jiří has provided magical moments for the festival audience with his sound installation in the trees. While in Innsbruck, Jiří has created algorithmic composition for the trees – 18 channel audio-installation (outdoor surround-sound system in the trees) in front of Haus der Musik.
Pulse33
Pulse33 was the last idea in collaboration with Heart of Noise festival. It is an audio-visual algorithmic (modular) installation, which was rearranged and exhibited during 4 days of Festival in the foyer of the Hause der Musik.
OR-bits Final was presented within Wiltener Kultursommer on 6 June in the area of Kaiserschützenplatz and Klangbäume and Pulse33 subsequently at the Heart of Noise Festival from 7 to 9 June.
