FLORIS VANHOOF: ANTENNA / TALKING GONGS
Antwerp based artist, Floris Vanhoof, combines homemade circuits and abandoned technologies to create installations and performances where carefully designed systems of translation between musical and visual dimensions are put at work opening up unexpected perspectives and perceptions.
ANTENNA (2022)
"In a time when all things are wirelessly connected, this installation invites to stand still and listen how a mechanical instrument can sound at the end of the information age. To see and hear how an object that is not of this time reacts to omnipresent waves."
Floris Vanhoof's installation, Antenna, connects an important part of the environment we are immersed in, namely the invisible world of electromagnetic waves, to the visible material world, in the concrete form of an icon of classical music, a piano.
This piano is turned on its side. The force of gravity can no longer be involved in playing its strings. Instead, the instrument is excited and set into vibration by a series of electromagnets attached to its structure, which are connected to an antenna built by the artist.
Tuned to 32 different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, the antenna captures the invisible waves that surround us and touch us, originating from disparate sources such as a thunderstorm, a dying star, planes, car keys, satellites, submarines our phones, etc. They determine the dynamics, rhythm, and polyphony we hear coming through from the body of the piano.
TALKING GONGS (2018)
Two gongs in metal frames are hung from tree branches. The large percussion instruments are raised to a height where they share the space with birds and tree leaves, no longer accessible to be played by humans in conventional ways.
The gongs become membranes that translate waves originated by small electronic circuits into sounds. Alternating signals give us the illusion of a dialogue between the seemingly floating disks while they keep a conversation with the everchanging environmental soundscape.
The exhibition was organized by Serralves Foundation and curated by Pedro Rocha.
Related
Floris Vanhoof Floris Vanhoof (b.1982, lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium) He is interested in the hybrid forms of music, visual art, and film. Inspired by structural film and early electronic music, he builds installations, creates expanded cinema performances, and releases his music. Vanhoof makes his own instruments to explore the border between image, light, and sound. He often chooses analog technology because of the greater transparency of the workflow, and because of its rich dynamic range. Cut loose from all nostalgia, he experiments with what used to be considered "hightech." Vanhoof searches for new ideas with old media. He translates sound to image and vice-versa by connecting different incompatible media. He is especially curious about the effects his work elicits on the viewer. Has performed at ISSUE Project Room New York, Palazzo Grassi Venice, Café OTO London, Aural Mexico City, ZKM Karlsruhe, Donaufestival Krems, Liquid Architecture Melbourne, International Filmfestival Rotterdam, Hangar Bicocca Milano, Electrónica en Abril Madrid, CC Brooklyn, OKLA Montréal, M HKA Antwerp and Bozar Brussels, among others. Installations were shown at Concertgebouw Brugge, CINEMATEK Brussels, Audio Foundation Auckland New-Zealand, STUK Leuven, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Ambika P3 London, Castlefield Gallery Manchester, Vooruit Ghent, Netwerk Alost, Bozar Brussels, Filmfestival Ghent, among others.