KIMA ‘The Wave’ at L’Abri Fondation, Geneva, 2016

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This week long installation at the heart of Geneva’s upcoming contemporary art scene art scene, the audience experienced sound in three different rooms: as calligraphic artwork and poetry performance by Evgenia Emets, physically as a standing wave echoing through the hallways of the Fondation L’Abri bunker, and as an interactive, sonic and visual interference pattern. Using microphones, Tibetan singing bowls and a projection piece on the walls the space, the audience deconstructed sound interactively – from concrete language and form to abstracted light to physical vibration.

The space of L’Abri Foundation is a resonant chamber with its own properties which reflect or absorb sound. The sound installation forms an immersive field which envelops the listener into sound waves. A site-specific generative sound design responds to the space and transforms it at the same time. Playing with the notions of standing waves, creating a resonance effect, which can be experienced physically at nodes and antinodes, a moving sonic field is created.

Evgenia Emets’ poem itself found inspiration in the emergence of language through sound, dwelling on sonic qualities of the words, the juxtaposition between the vowels and consonants, and their interplay. The audience was invited to explore interactive sound and visual elements, which allowed the audience to actively participate in bringing the space alive through sound and vision. Two pieces invited the audience to investigate sound – through exploration of their own voice as real-time representation and by observing interference patterns generated by Tibetan singing bowls. A physical standing wave guided audience into the space – a former WWII bunker.

Credits: Evgenia Emets, Oliver Gingrich, Alain Renaud, Sean Soraghan, Dario Villanueva Ablanedo, Katerina Loschinina