The installation composes electronic, music equipment and household appliances such as a mixing desk, a turntable, laser pointers and mirrors into an sculptural assemblage, that makes sound visible as a moving light trace on the wall. The sounds can be contributed by visitor from a playing table.
Artist statement: In script we trust, because its engraved in stone, metal, concrete, printed in black on white. But what about a writing that is volatile, that 's gone in the moment we have perceived it? A writing as evanescent as sound? How much credit would we attribute to that? A writing that appears just intense enough to leave an afterimage on our retina for a few instants. The installation W-O-W features such a light writer, that you may use for your own writing experiments, to write on the walls of the space. Yet, here you don't write with a stylus, but with strings, whistles and drums: you write by making sounds: audio graffiti or visible sound waves, or just an invitation to jam together.
bio: Hannes Hoelzl works in various disciplines and constellations, always orbiting around the central focus of sound. His developments in music aim at enabling the computer to keep up with the directness of improvising instrumentalists, and at pseudo-intelligent sound objects that might be able to surprise the performer with unforseen turns. His sound installations are usually site-specific, with "scenarios" in Manifesta7 being his major project so far: a historical fortress in Italy was equipped with listening stations in over 60 of its vaulted rooms. Beyond his artistic pursuits, Hoelzl works as designer, composer, software developer and instructor. He has performed internationally in Europe, China and the US, and his installative works have been exhibited, amongst others, in the Venice Biennale, in the Beijing Millenium Dome, and in the Cologne Museum for Applied Arts. He has held lectures and workshops at Universities and Conservatories in Wesleyan/Connecticut, Prague, Oslo and Berlin and is a lecturer at Duesseldorf Music Academy.
