Schritte   2009

Steps

This installation was made for the Great Garden in Hanover-Herrenhausen. It is fabricated from two sound materials: on the one hand the sound made by steps in this garder; on the other hand two short "soundbites" from the (preliminary?) martial "resolution" of the decade-long conflict in Sri Lanka. Both quotes accentuate two typical sides of such processes. The head of government's speech is about how there was no alternative to the military action and that all problems are now resolved. The tale of a woman in a refugee camp deals with how the war has devastated her life.

The idea of this installation is to listen to a (this) external space in the internal space of a garden. While one can otherwise step here or there, stop and watch, then go on, here one can sit and step into spaces of listening. What one hears are adaptations of the two "soundbites". In both excerpts (woman and man) a sound-path is covered, at the end of which is the original quote. The stops along the way, the different tempi and rhythms of the steps, accentuate aspects and potentials of the respective "soundbites" and relate them to each other.

I thank Thomas Kruchem for letting me use the two soundbites from his radio feature.