With an electronic instrument consisting of 12 sinus oscillators, Carl Michael von Hausswolff explores the resonances of the ZKM Kubus concert hall with his highly physical drone music interspersed with deep frequencies, playing with its inherent vibrations.
Sinus oscillators and mixing console: CM von Hausswolff
Composition and realization: CM von Hausswolff
Production: SWR/ZKM Institute for Music and Acoustics 2013/14
Premiere broadcast on February 4, 2014 on SWR2.
Carl Michael von Hausswolff on his work
This piece originates from the tradition of electroacoustic music and incorporates the sounds of pure electronic sinus waves as well as musique concrète. It follows an A to B format and has a very strict framework, yet offers a variety of improvisational possibilities. Since one of the composition's elements relies on the acoustic qualities of the performance space, each rendition of the piece is unique. Before the concert, the space is explored during the soundcheck with a selection of sinus waves, allowing for individual calibration. It is therefore crucial that the venue functions as an 'exoinstrument,' enabling the piece to merge with the space—the concert hall becomes an echo chamber, a resonating box.
In this way, listeners can also feel the music with their bodies, thus connecting the physical with the intellectual experience—an important aspect for the musician as well, as the piece must be performed with both intellectual perception (the current score) and physical presence (the "here and now" situation).
Circulating over Square Waters has been performed many times and in various locations, from rough pubs to prestigious concert halls with seated audiences. Initially (around 1996), I focused on the respective 50 Hz sound of the power grid and also used two old Philips oscillators for the low-frequency tones. Later (2004), I asked the Finnish designer Jari Lehtinen (known for his work with Mika Vainio and Erkki Kurenniemi) to build me an instrument with twelve oscillators that could also generate square and sawtooth waves. This instrument is now the basis on which the piece is performed.
Over the years, various sources have been used for the medium and high-frequency tones: sonar, zero-tone and EVP recordings, and of course medium and high-frequency sinus waves. For the performance in the Kubus at ZKM Karlsruhe, I used the twelve sinus oscillators along with three scans of radio signals (in real-time), moving back and forth, as well as a simple Whispers 2000 microphone, through which my voice was filtered and transformed into an extremely distorted sound.
The complex room recording in 5.1 surround was planned with SWR and the ZKM Institute for Music and Acoustics so that all aspects of the concert were transmitted into the radio version Circulating over Square Waters (ZKM Kubus). In contrast to most other venues, the ZKM Kubus provided me with a very high-quality and accurately calibrated sound system in an acoustically optimized space where the music can flow freely. These special conditions were ideal for the experiment of a radio version and convey the feeling of spatial dynamics and fluctuation in the space-time relationship as the concert version aims to achieve.
The Jury Statement
"The Swedish artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff engages in a musical dialogue with the materiality of spaces and their sonic properties using minimalist means. His instrumentation consists of twelve sinus generators and two speakers. With their assistance, the resonances of the space are triggered and made audible in a continuous crescendo. Unwaveringly consistent, Carl Michael von Hausswolff utilizes the existing space as an instrument in 'Circulating over Square Waters (ZKM Kubus),' heightening the intensity of the sounds with great sensitivity and artistic assurance. In the radiophonic realization, imaginary soundscapes are created from the sound waves on the timeline, into which the listener can immerse themselves like contemplating a monochromatic painting."
Details of the 2014 competition
In 2014, 89 competition entries were submitted by 134 applicants from 20 countries. An independent jury chaired by former Minister of State for Culture Christina Weiss decided on the award. Other jury members were Margarete Zander, Helmut Oehring, Marcel Beyer and Michael Grote.
The award ceremony took place on October 19 as a public event as part of the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2014.
The author
Carl Michael von Hausswolff, born in 1956 in Linköping, Sweden, lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Since the late 1970s, Carl Michael von Hausswolff has been working as a composer primarily using tape recorders and sinus waves as his main instruments.
His concerts often constitute dynamic structures that take advantage of the acoustics of specific spaces. His releases possess a conceptual and intellectual basis, allowing the composed sounds to oscillate between the sounding object and the music itself. As a conceptual visual artist, he works with performance art, light and sound installations, as well as photography.
His interest in architecture and topography has also led to films such as Hashima (Japan 2002), Al Qasr, Bahriyah Oasis, Egypt (2005), and Electra, Texas (2008), which were created in collaboration with filmmaker Thomas Nordanstad. In 1997, he began a series of works under the title Operations of Spirit Communication. These works, inspired by methods of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) (tape voices), combine and merge sound and image with analog and digital technologies such as oscilloscopes, radar, and sonar. These off-the-shelf devices suggest the possibility of the existence of spirits and other life forms within specific spatialities or within the power grid. The cities of Paris, Linz, Bangkok, Shanghai, Banja Luka, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, New York City, Tokyo, Frankfurt am Main, Stockholm, and Copenhagen have been scrutinized under this ghostly lens.
Recently, the exhibition The Complete Operations of Spirit Communication was presented at the OK Centrum in Linz, Austria. Carl Michael von Hausswolff has also collaborated with EVP researcher Michael Esposito in several sessions. In the spring of 2005, Carl Michael von Hausswolff completed his Starhouse project for The Land Foundation, organized by Kamin Lertchaiprasert and Rirkrit Tiravanija in Chiangmai, Thailand.
