play:display

collaboration with Rashad Becker, apparent-extend 2000/2014

 

play:display is a soundscape from audio recordings made at two architectural sites in Berlin. One is the Reichstag (home of the German parliament) redesigned by Sir Norman Foster, the other is the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz designed by Helmut Jahn. Both sites are charactarised by a dominant glass element, where ‘transparency’ seems to be the main emphasis of the architecture. At the Reichstag, the glass dome symbolises a new radical expression of democracy, and at the Sony Center, the particular transparent quality is considered a ‘feature of the culture of a new millennium’. Born from the ideal of being a democratic element, transparent materials cover more and more surfaces. From transparent buildings to transparent public figures, it suggests that transparency equals accessibility and accountability. But in analysing the acoustic quality of a material like glass, it demonstrates that transparent materials can also withhold and separate things. For the recording, two contact microphones were used, installed onto the glass surfaces with an adhesive compound. Contact microphones are corporeal-sound converters, translating vibrations into voltage.