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no voice audible but that of the sea on the far side
four channel sound installation. 2013
9 - 12th May 2013, Aarhus harbour, SPOR Festival Aarhus

http://www.sporfestival.dk/2013/works/&workid=361

"Most impressive among the festival's commissions was Kirsten Reese's no voice audible but that of the sea on the far side, a site specific installation inside a giant, rustic cofferdam parked on the quayside. This imposing cylindrical tower was designed to sit on the seabed and muffle the noise opollution of piledrivers, but Reese exploited the unique resonant properties of its interior, projecting laboratory recordings of 'fish voices', sometimes processed through Fairlight sequencers, producing a poetic ambiguity between organic and electronic sounds which seemed to spiral upwards, directing the audience's attention to the perfect blue disc of Danish sky formed by the cofferdam's opening."
Leo Chadburn, The Wire, issue 354 2013, p.80

A sound installation inside the cofferdam I discovered at the Mellemarmen headland at Arhus harbour. Not only that the cofferdam as a structure looks weirdly beautiful and fascinating, it serves a purpose that has to do with sound respectively sound reduction and sound ecology. The cofferdam is a prototype for a sound-damping system to reduce the noise level during offshore wind turbine pile driving, which is believed to cause hearing damage to marine mammals, and possibly has other negative effects on smaller ocean creatures like fish that are not yet known. Because of its cylindrical shape, the inside of the cofferdam also has a very unique and specific acoustic. The sounds of the installation are based on fish voices - during the work on this project, I came to realise how untrue the expression 'as mute as a fish' actually is. Some fish recordings were transformed into synthesized electronic sound - sounds of the fairlight synthesizer/sampler with an equally archaic ambience. The sound installation particularly emphasizes those frequencies that resonate with the structure and its prolonged, transparent sounding echo - another reference to the strange (to us strange) world of underwater acoustics.

> audio exerpts



covered, uncovered
audiotrack with voice and sound for headphones / objects, photos, sound, small speakers. 2013
9 - 12th May 2013, Kunsthal Aarhus, SPOR Festival Aarhus

This installation consists of an audiotrack to be listened to through headphones, with voice and soundscapes which reflect thoughts and processes during the making of 'no voice audible but that of the sea on the far side', and a miniature sound installation for objects and speakers.

> covered, uncovered - 17'