Spikes, een geluidsinstallatie van Laura Maes

Mijn dochter Laura Maes was afgelopen week opnieuw in Dartmouth (USA) voor haar muziekinstallatie Spikes die daar een definitieve plaats heeft gekregen. De installatie werkt geheel op zonne-energie.

https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/explore/publications/resonant-spaces-sound-art-dartmouth?page=13

The daily movement of the sun is a familiar and consistent feature of life on earth. Laura Maes’s Spikes captured this energy, translating it into sound at once random and organized. Spikes comprised 200 solar-powered circuits that produce clicking sounds. As solar panels attached to the exterior of Cummings Hall at the Thayer School of Engineering gathered energy, they completed circuits mounted on the ceiling of the building’s entrance atrium. Each of these 200 circuits produced a clicking sound at a specific frequency. The sound varied by circuit, depending on the electronic components and the amount of energy captured by the panel. Different materials including ceramics, glass, wood, and copper, created clicks of different resonances. LEDs lit up in conjunction with the clicks as the circuits were completed. This random cluster of clicks made audible the sun’s energy as it changed over time. Sunnier days brought more clicks, and cloudier ones fewer. Spikes was silent at night. Mounted on the ceiling, the work transformed the space, visually orderly in its neat grid pattern, even as the clicking sounded haphazard.