Gonzo special: 10 years of Klankenbos

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EDITORIAL - NATURAL SOUNDBOARD Presenting sound art in a museum is like looking at animals in a zoo. Despite creating the best, most advantageous circumstances for public and ‘the performer’ alike, the feeling of artificiality is never far away. Working outdoors, however, offers a number of opportunities to create a dialogue with the immediate environment. Outside of the echoing halls of the museum, a sound artist can exploit a myriad of opportunities, whilst the listener can enjoy a certain peace and freedom of movement.

A few kilometers from the Dutch border, in the Belgian Neerpelt, there is a unique outdoor sound art collection, one which has been in operation since 2005: Klankenbos. Hidden among the trees of the Provinciaal Domein Dommelhof, you can find sound installations in the most diverse shape and form. The collection ranges from vibrating boxes and “motorised trees”, to installations that are “played by the elements”, or objects that invite visitor to interact. The contributing artists are commissioned by Musica, Impulse Centre For Music to create sound installations in harmony with the natural environment. You can explore this international collection at any time of day, and without a ticket.

Naturally, Gonzo (Circus) and Musica don’t want the ten-year anniversary of this original sound art project to go by unnoticed. Therefore the collection will be put firmly in the spotlight for a year and celebrated, with a number of actions and activities. Alongside the physical installations, attention will also be paid to the virtual experience. In 2010 Musica and Intro in Situ (Maastricht) teamed up and came up with Klankatlas, a platform for location-based sound art and musical heritage in Belgium and the Netherlands. Since then, numerous soundscapes have been created for specific places in Limburg and beyond. These can be accessed via the website, or by using a mobile app that uses GPS technology to marry the sounds and locations. Klankenbos and Klankatlas form a complementary story, therefore.

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I’M ALWAYS HERE, YOU’RE ALWAYS THERE

The Enjoyable Honesty of Location

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LAURA MAES

On a Buzzing Bench in a Forest

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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT PETER VEENSTRA

Making People Aware of Sound

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ROZALIE HIRS

Poet and Composer

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HIGHLIGHTS

Klankenbos is not a static museum collection, but a work in progress. This is seen with the addition in 2015 of a brand new installation. There is an interactive sound machine that will be running on solar energy, created by Laura Maes. Also new is a trail with eight sensuous sound poems, which were chosen from over 350 entries. The relationship between sound and poetry is explored in the work of Rozalie Hirs. Hirs’s walk, ‘Curvices’ - only audible with the use of smartphone or tablet - casts a musical net over Klankenbos. Peter Veenstra is a landscape architect known for his work with LoLa landscape architects. Veenstra sees public spaces as his main source of inspiration. Along with sound artist Geert Jan Hobijn from Staalplaat Soundsystem, Veenstra has created an artificial birch tree that generates subtle noise fields using vibrating motors.

Gilles Helsen & Gé Huisman

COLOFON

This ‘Klankenbos Special’ is a co-production of Musica, Impulse Centre for Music, and Gonzo (Circus) and was originally published in Gonzo (Circus) # 129.

Concept / Editorial: Ellen De Bruyne (Communications Coordinator, Musica), Gilles Helsen (Artistic

Coordinator, Klankenbos), Gé Huisman (Editor in Chief, GC) and Ruth Timmermans (Managing Director GC).

Texts: Peter Bruyn, Griet Menschaert Harold Schellinx and René van Peer.

Pictures: Geoffrey Brusatto, Paul Lamont, Sara Anke Morris, Michel Mees and Hanne Berckmans Design: Wouter Medaer (http://www.wunderkind.es)

Editors: Ellen De Bruyne, Marjolein Geraedts, Gilles Helsen, Jurgen Tas and Ruth Timmermans.

The use of articles / PDF

Articles in this special can be used with prior written consent of Gonzo (Circus), Musica and the corresponding author, photographer and / or illustrator; and with express citation. We are happy to send you a pdf on request, in Dutch or English. For all questions please mail info@musica.be.

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I’M ALWAYS HERE, YOU’RE ALWAYS THERE The Enjoyable Honesty of Location

author Harold Schellinx illustrations: Hanne Berckmans

Locative sound art - sound routes directed by GPS, local, inter-reactive compositions, or site-specific sound installations - force you to experience music just as you would have done with an orchestra in earlier times. But you must go “outside” to experience it. Those who stay at home miss out...

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“Hey, sound walkers!” This thought came to me not so long ago on an average weekday in summer, somewhere in the middle of Paris whilst watching a group of around twenty people enter the metro. Whilst all were listening to music, none of this group wore the usual “sensible” small earplugs; rather the whole group sported bold and expensive headphones; mostly of a brand that I won’t mention here.

ALIENS

The group consisted predominantly of men in their middle twenties to their mid-to-late forties. The headphones gave this disparate bunch of individuals a certain commonality; along with the thin faux-leather waist belt and attached bag, into which the leads of their headphones disappeared. Judging from what I know of the sound equipment, the bag must have housed an MP3 player, full of appropriate, pre-programmed music files that would enhance their journeys.

THE PLAYERS “PLAYED”

The sound walkers all stood with one hand on one of the horizontal or vertical metal bars in the metro train.

They looked blankly past one another, and stared at the mirrored windows, or at some other indefinable object in the near distance. “Aliens”, I thought. One of the few women in their company was sitting on a bench in front of me, her hands fold on her knees, as if in prayer. Early thirties, I guessed, with dark curly hair, brown eyes; a black leather jacket, jeans and sneakers, also of a famous brand that I won’t mention. I sent a sympathetic glance her way, hoping she would pick up on my thoughts, which were something like: “Admittedly I don’t know what you are listening to, but you’re listening. Go on, teach me what it is! I know a bit about these sound walks.”

And she smiled back when our eyes met. But there was something embarrassed about her smile, as if I’d caught her out. Very quickly, she turned her gaze away from mine, and then spent the rest of the time staring at the rubber strips in the aisle.

AUDIO BUBBLES

I don’t know where they all came from. I also don’t know where they went. And it was unthinkable that I would dare punch a hole in their respective “audio bubbles” by pulling one of these sound walkers on the sleeve, demanding that they take their headphones off, so I could find out what they were listening to. As curious as I was, I didn’t take the plunge. But, even though we were there in the Paris metro together at the same time, we did not experience the same space. Sound is essential for the perception of space, and these sound walkers were in a very different, parallel world; one which admittedly looked the same as mine, but sounded very different. Very occasionally the sound walkers smiled

broadly, and winked at each other; understanding that they all had experienced a moment at the same time.

Their sound was not mine. After four or five stops they all got off at Belleville station. Two of them collided roughly with an elderly lady who was lugging three large heavy shopping bags. She shouted out a warning “Attention!” to them. Of course, it wasn’t heard. The two, suddenly conscious of their actions, turned and raised their hands heavenwards in apology. The lady swore and grumbled something, but the sound walkers didn’t hear. The lady then looked towards me and shook her head disapprovingly. But the doors were already closed.

SOUND CARDS

I had, however, formed an impression of the purpose and content of the walk that this group of sound walkers may have been on, through hearing a piece of their sound card. Every soundwalk has a sound card: a map which tags the locations of a soundwalk with corresponding sounds. In some cases (but not all) you can also hear the sounds on the card in the form of digital audio files, which means that you can experience the soundwalk at home behind your computer. It is a static representation of a dynamic process. The sounds on the card can be previously recorded ones from a place on the walk, or maybe from somewhere else entirely unrelated to that place; spoken word pieces and stories; anecdotes and interviews; music made specifically for that place; or something from a very

Each sound card has a score , each step a sound performance.

different country and a different time. Just like soundwalks, sound cards have enjoyed a rapidly growing interest in recent years; and from many fields, such as art, science and commerce. All of this is thanks to the rapid technological developments that have created detailed, interactive maps that pinpoint the successive locations of someone who is on the move; brought within everyone’s reach. Nowadays, only a smartphone is required. Each sound card is the score of a sound piece, and each sound “stages” a performance.

It is worth pointing out, however, that you can stage your own soundwalk without using any “technology”; except for your ears, eyes, and brain. A good example is the oto-date soundwalk series of the Japanese artist Akio Suzuki, “no-tech” pieces which do little more than choose a number of listening points, and mark them for his sound walkers on the street; the physical, “one-on-one”version of the sound card. (One of

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www locativemediasoundart.wordpress.com (Locative Media & Sound Art, Kortrijk 2014 - een samenwerking van Musica en Festival van Vlaanderen Kortrijk) wi.mobilities.ca (Audio Mobility - Locus Sonus 2015) hier.soundblog.net (Hier! iApp - ookoi) klankatlas.eu (Klankatlas - een project van Musica en Intro in situ) read read more about soundwalks (‘klankstappen’) in gonzo 115 read more about muzak and general Squier in gonzo 129 read more about ookoi in gonzo 8

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Akio’s oto-date soundwalks is part of the collection of soundwalks that you can still walk all day in Kortrijk. Akio’s sound card in Kortrijk has fifteen listening points.)

Another example is what Max Neuhaus did almost fifty years ago in Manhattan, when he invited a group of friends to get together on a street corner not far from the banks of the East River. There, he stamped the word “listen” on everyone’s hand, and began to walk along the river. It is perhaps the first documented soundwalk in art history. But certainly not the first “sound walk”. Because that, of course, is as old as humanity itself.

THE BRAKES ARE OFF

Everything that seems “new” is actually the latest step in a process that has been evolving since recording began; namely recording sounds in one place and playing them in another. Since the dissemination of sound became common, it has been possible for everyone to take music and other sounds for a walk, and drape the virtual soundscape - as arbitrarily as the listener will over the “real” soundscape of the time. The sounds are virtual because the sound you hear (in most cases through your headphones) did not originate in the place where you are, but from elsewhere. Taking them “elsewhere” originally meant employing a cassette tape; nowadays an MP3 player, smartphone or remote web server serves the purpose. The real, environmental sounds have little to do with this transferred sound; they just carry on regardless, “elsewhere”.But your alternative, virtual sound world can both cloak and replace the real sound world (the intent, of course, of the many music mixes pumping through so many earphones). Places can be enhanced, or reassessed in a new context; with music, poetry, stories, instructions or simply with other sounds. These are the “audio bubbles” that I saw float around the subway in Paris.

It is the approach employed by many tourist guides and by a large number of standard “highbrow / avant-garde” soundwalks. Of course, many did this for years; using the old cassette Walkman, or its digital sister, the MP3 player. But recently, via the use of location and motion-sensitive devices, all the brakes have come off. GPS, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, camera, microphone: all housed in a compact, usable, smartphone.

INTER-REACTIVE MUSIC LOCATIONS The microphone can be used to capture “real world sounds” and use them in combination with prerecorded sound files. But you can also use the power of the smartphone to capture “real world sounds” and distort or change them in real time using our knowledge of digital recording processes.

With ears that can hear the entire world.

The control given through the accelerometer, the gyroscope and location sensitivity of the GPS was the starting point for the power of RjDj (a popular visual programming language for interactive computer music and multimedia pieces), a Pure Databased digital platform for mobile interreactive music that has, unfortunately, dropped completely off the radar. (This does happen with startups). But you often encounter similar, if not the same ideas in the increasingly ubiquitous “sound stage” and “interactive music” smartphone apps launched by artists and collectives the world over (apps that then, just as quickly, disappear). Usually they encourage “locative” compositions: “reactive” music made for a specific location. The sound captured by the microphone will be influenced by places or objects within that location, and the direction, or speed of the walker. Here “composition” usually means the piece being formed by several different spots within the data location; not necessarily chronologically ordered, but usually - and in the broadest sense - thematically related.

Examples include the French Topophonie de l’eau (a collaboration of Orbe, IRCAM and ENSCI), one of the endlessly variable water-based soundwalks to the Parc de Belleville, and the series of soundwalk compositions for various locations experienced with the app ‘Walk With Me’, by the Dutch composer duo Strijbos and Van Rijswijk.

A recent example of a purely reactive app

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that captures the spirit of RjDj is Peter Sinclair’s ‘Road Music’. With this piece, you put your smartphone firmly in a small container on the windscreen of your car and connect the audio output to your stereo.

The app then generates music in real time based on all data captured by the camera, microphone, and smartphone.

GET OUT AND DO SOMETHING!

Nowadays we are very spoiled. Virtually everything we want to see, hear or read is a mouse-click away. We can just sit behind our screens and press, swipe, or click. The best thing about all the location-specific audio tours and reactive music applications is that they counter this trend. If you want to experience Benjamin Van Essers ‘Kluis’, a piece that is part of ‘Sound Route WW1’ (2015), then you will have to grab your smartphone and get on your bike (or take a bus or car ride) because you can only hear Esser’s work in the neighbourhood of the Achelse Kluis, on the border of Belgium and the Netherlands. I think one of the strengths of the very specific localised art is their ability to create a sense of freshness and uniqueness from the possibilities offered by GPS-based devices like tablets and smartphones. (Even an attempt to hack such a work can be seen as another element of that work.) Four years ago the American duo Blue Brain made an album that could only be heard in the National Mall in Washington. When I was there three years ago, I forgot to listen to it. I don’t know when I will next get a chance, but from the descriptions of the work, I have the impression that the National Mall piece is still more of a soundwalk for that location than an album in the traditional sense. The locative Future Pop EP ‘Here!’ from Studio ookoi - published last year as an iPhone app to mark the occasion of the symposium ‘Locative Media and Sound Art’ in Kortrijk - definitely is. But it is impossible to listen to ‘Here!’ at one go, because you have to be in another place (Amsterdam, Heerlen, Kortrijk, and Paris) to hear each one of the four numbers.

SOUND ART TENTS

The same idea sits in sound art, and “location-specific” installations. These works have

been conceived and created for a specific place (or places, but using the same, special characteristics). You can, of course, get a description of the idea, or download some pictures or a short video impression, but if you really want to experience such a work, then you will still have to go. I find the best works are the ones which succeed in conjuring up the specific environment in both picture and sound. The ones that create a sound that is not a musical equivalent to a place, or a piece with a beginning and an end, but the ones that merge with the surroundings completely and constantly, day and night; creating a new soundscape that is fluid, surreal, absolute. When I encounter really good sound art in a public space, I always want to set up a tent right there and then, and stay a few days; preferably with my eyes closed, and hands clasped behind my head. Klankenbos in Neerpelt is an ideal spot in this regard. For example, I would put a tent right next to the ‘Windribbon’ by Leif Brush; and on days when it rains I can crawl into the glass kubus ‘Tacet’ ’’. But, however much I liked Paul Panhuysen, I’d rather avoid ‘Kanariestudio’. Birds in an aviary in the forest? Birds in the forest must fly!

BOOM ANTENNAS

Someone complained to me recently that the increasing amount of sound art in public spaces just produces irritating or confusing sounds, and a visitor who comes for other things other than the art has no choice but to listen in; unless they stop their ears. “Maybe I’m just not in the mood, but I think it’s often a hollow racket.

Or worse, a C21st form of Muzak,” she said. I said nothing, because it was time to go home. But the chance that someone just happens upon Klankenbos and doesn’t come specifically for the sounds seems a small one, I thought later. Maybe we could turn the tables, and channel the hollow roar and Muzak of our times towards Neerpelt? Virtually no one remembers that the creator of Muzak, Major General Squier, also was the discoverer of the boom antenna (a discovery which laid bare the remarkable fact that a living tree can be used as an antenna (a dead one cannot) and through which you can effortlessly pick up radio signals from the other side of the world). As Head Signal Officer in the US Army during World War I, Squier used boom antennas to intercept German military radio messages. In America!

And it worked! Can such a proposition get any weirder, or more beautiful? I therefore propose to use the principle of Major General Squier’s boom antennas to create a new installation, perfect for Klankenbos; an installation that will ensure that the forest is no longer just a warm vibrant audiovisual collage of generated and natural sounds. That the forest is no longer just howls, but is a howling forest with ears, one that can hear the whole world. Even when it rains.

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On a Buzzing Bench in a Forest

LAURA MAES author René van Peer pictures Paul Lamont

Musical furniture: it is not a new concept, but it is one with a special appeal. The Belgian sound artist Laura Maes has devised an installation for Klankenbos in Neerpelt, one in the form of a bench that produces sounds related with the surrounding environment.

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Now, that must be a special experience. You go with your children to a playground near Klankenbos in Neerpelt. There, they tirelessly put all the units to the test, climbing on them if they can. A good time to take a break, and sit down. You sit on a bench, only to notice that it is generating sounds. Sounds, moreover, that change when you change position, or if someone comes to sit next to you. The bench isn’t the sort of item you normally find in a playground. It is the work of Laura Maes from Ostend, and has provisionally been given the title ‘Liglicht’. Combining music and furniture that appeals to the imagination. The French composer Erik Satie had imagined over a century ago a sort of music which could fit seamlessly into

someone’s everyday environment, creating a series that he called Musique d’ameublement. The titles of several of the passages refer to parts of common interiors, such as tiles and wallpaper. It was music that could serve as the environment; and can be seen as a direct precursor to the ambient music of Brian Eno.

MUSICAL FURNITURE

Musical furniture existed long before Satie: one can point to the immense music boxes that were ‘built into’ elaborate cabinets. Even the more sophisticated music equipment from the early twentieth century was housed in specially designed casings, preferably of solid wood. But with the advent of sound art,

the relationship between furniture and music began to be seen as increasingly symbiotic. The Eindhoven sound artist Paul Panhuysen - also represented in Klankenbos with the installation ‘Kanariestudio’ built speakers in the seats of chairs, allowing the sitter to hear music in a relaxed posture whilst experiencing the vibrations from the speakers ripple through their butt ocks. The Tilburg composers Jeroen Strijbos and Rob van Rijswijk work with, and make music specifically for rocking chairs; whose movements then affect the composition and direction of the sound. In her installation, Maes uses sounds that are indigenous to the area where her bench is located. “The installation is not in Klanken-

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bos itself, but on an adjacent site. It is an open playground for the scouts, equipped with all kinds of facilities. It is a place where parents like to take their children. There are not many benches there, so people will automatically look to sit on my bench. The speakers in the bench mimic the sound of passing cars, which reflects the heavy traffic on the road nearby. But it sounds like waves rolling in, and the wind rustling through the leaves in a tree. Light sensors in the seat control filters and effects that are then added to the basic sound. And the more the bench’s sensors are covered, the stronger the sounds, in both strength and capacity.

The place where the sensors are plays a key role. If someone comes to sit down beside you, or if you assume a different pose, or even if you let your hand drop: all of these actions will influence the sound.”

PVC

That kind of approach to interactivity was one of the reasons that Musica, Impulse Centre for Music approached Maes to work in Klankenbos. “Laura had long been on our list. She does clever things with new technology. She is affiliated with Logos, a centre in Ghent which we have strong ties with.

This year we commissioned them to create a mobile installation, an instrument created from PVC pipes, that will be presented here on October 18th 2015. We also wanted to have a stronger presence of Belgian artists’ work in the forest. We have many Dutch, and also French and Germans. But the Belgians are really outnumbered.”

THE PATHS OUTSIDE

As a sound artist Maes has the most affinity with work created for a specific environment.

She reveals in her dissertation on sound art - written in 2013 - that she has felt this way since her early childhood. In it, she tells how her mother took her as a seven-year-old to ‘Chambres d’Amis’, the exhibition in Ghent, where the visionary curator and organiser Jan Hoet enjoyed an international breakthrough. The exhibition consisted of several houses; with every room decorated by a different artist. A month later, she attended another exhibition with her mother; one in an abandoned textile factory, organised by artists who felt excluded by Hoet. In her dissertation she explains that both events demonstrated that art could exist beyond

the walls of a museum. And that the work could be funny and absurd, and also surprise.

Maes became interested in experimental music and noise and, at the age of seventeen, set up the label Cling Film with Kevin Van Volcem. “We brought out limited releases on cassette and on CD”, she said.

It sounds like rolling waves, like the wind rustling through the leaves.

“We also organised concerts and festivals for the musicians whom we felt an affinity with. When Bruges was European Capital of Culture in 2002, we placed four train carriages full of speakers in a square in the city; a boombox of gigantic proportions, playing a quadraphonic composition. We stopped the label because it was becoming increasingly difficult to sell albums containing or consisting of experimental music.”

SCARY

Her love for experimental music was further fuelled by classes given by Logos director Godfried-Willem Raes. And working for the Ghent arts centre Vooruit, and the ‘Happy New Ears’ festival in Kortrijk brought her into contact with sound art, and the artists active in this interdisciplinary milieu. Together with her new contacts, Maes began making installations, and these became the subject of her doctoral thesis at the University of Ghent, ‘Sounding Sound Art’. In that thesis she tried to find a definition of the term, “sound art”. She found this exercise necessary because there are so many different forms: “It can be said that sound art is placed outside a normal ‘concert situation’. You often find the works in a public space, or in unexpected places.

You reach a different audience. On the one hand you get people who have come specifically for this kind of work, but there are also many passers-by. Also, many pieces classified as sound art do not have a clear beginning or ending. But the boundaries between sound art and music are often blurred.” In her installations, she looks for

the relationship between image and sound, and she often dishes out her extraordinary experiences for audiences, as in ‘Oorwonde’ and ‘Stereotaxie’. “Both of them suggest unpleasant situations. Visitors experience ‘Oorwonde’ on an operating table. It scares people off, they’re afraid to lie down. But if they do, they note that the sound experience is very pleasant. The same applies to ‘Stereotaxie’, in which a visitor must enter a narrow cylinder, and have electrodes placed on their head. The cylinder is slowly tilted to a horizontal position. What is heard is a translation of brainwaves into sound. This installation is staggering. The cylinder feels as if it is tilting much further than it actually is. Yet it is an enjoyable experience if one surrenders fully to it.”

The installation that Maes made for Klankenbos has nothing frightening about it though; even if people are startled when the bench begins to make sounds. Maes works in the area where disciplines overlap, though she is well aware that her roots are in music. “The visual aspect of my work does exist, but to me sound is the most important element. Yet people often seem to think that I have a background in the visual arts; to my great surprise!”

selective bibliography Laura Maes, Sounding Sound Art (Gent: Universiteit Gent, 2013) live Rozalie Hirs will perform during the 10th-anniversary Klankenbos sound art event on October 18th, 2015.

More information: musica.be/en/10-years-klankenbos www laura.annaville.net logosfoundation.org soundcloud.com/laura-maes facebook.com/rene.vanpeer

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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

PETER VEENSTRA author Peter Bruyn

Making People Aware of Sound

Until recently, landscape architecture had little time for sound. Peter Veenstra wants to change all that with LoLa. The sound of cars, and the rustling of grass and leaves is also part of the landscape.

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Twenty-four birch trees planted in neat straight lines, vibrating, with their leaves rustling. All the trees have been fitted with a motor that makes them vibrate, which in turn makes the leaves rustle. This is Composed Nature, the contribution of Staalplaat Soundsystem and LoLa landscape architects to Klankenbos in Neerpelt. The motors are operated remotely, and are programmed so that the birch grove can “rustle out” nine different “pieces”.

Peter Veenstra (1980) is a landscape architect. Together with colleagues Eric Jan Pleijster and Cees van der Veeken, he founded LoLa in Rotterdam in 2006. LoLa stands for ‘Lost Landscapes’. The agency is looks for creative solutions for landscapes that have been forgotten, have “disappeared from view” or are about to change. The past decade has seen many commissions - mostly issued by governments - and competitions won; regardless of the fact that many of these projects are long term ones. “We have been busy for eight years, and we’ve only just finished some of our first projects,” said Veenstra.

“Landscape architecture is a profession where you need to have patience. When we started our agency, the economic crisis had just begun to bite. Consequently, many projects have been shelved or pushed onto the

back burner. But we have faith in the future.

Architecture always comes back when the economy flourishes.”

COMPOSING THE CITY

Veenstra met sound artist Geert Jan Hobijn - who works under the name Staalplaat Soundsystem - a few years ago during a project in which both were involved on the Amsterdam Zuidas. They started talking about art in public spaces and decided to work to-

gether. Their collaboration began in a workshop in Berlin, with the title, ‘Composing the City.’ “The interesting thing about sound art is that no one understands it, but at the same time everyone understands it, because sound art does not have the academic “interpretative” tradition that you see, for example, in the visual arts. That’s something Geert Jan showed me, and what I still find fascinating”, says the architect. “At the same time Geert Jan found it interesting to

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work in public space, mainly because he reached a very different audience than those in the clubs and galleries, which were his normal exhibition spaces up to then.”

Peter Veenstra stated that the installation in Klankenbos had already been given a two-day dry-run, using 64 birch trees in Dordrecht.

That was, in its own way, a test for another, much larger project that is still in development: ‘The Aural Garden’. LoLa had already been commissioned to develop a landscape plan for buffer zones in the new Dordrecht district which will be built next to a highway. The architects collective faced a long list of regulations, such as the request for sound barriers to kill the effect of the traffic noise.

LoLa decided to tackle things differently than usual, and alongside Hobijn, searched for a new way to combine landscape and sound art. The plan was to replace the traditional “sound barrier” with a series of “sound hills”, laid side by side, complemented by a planting that would filter the noise.

In time, the American Max Neuhaus also became involved in the project. Neuhaus, an American sound artist and pioneer in sound systems, made a design that (using the different heights of the hills, and different types of vegetation) would provide a sound installation. It soon became obvious that when different plants were exposed to the wind, they produced totally different sounds.

‘The Aural Garden’, however, is still not finished. Neuhaus died in 2009. And the economic crisis meant that the construction of Wilgenwende met with considerable delay.

But Veenstra still intends to finish the project.

And the experiences learnt from ‘Composed Nature’ will only contribute to the final result.

QUIET PLACES

“Originally landscape architects created enclosed gardens. Then estates. Essentially quiet places,” says Veenstra. “Cities, however, due to their mechanised and industrialised aspect, will produce a lot of noise. Previously, landscape architects never bothered themselves with cities. We find this strange. Research has shown that noise influences human behaviour a lot. You can try to eliminate the noise by using a noise barrier, but you can also emphasise and exploit these sounds, so the people are conscious of them, and through this consciousness they can keep an open mind towards their own environment. You can see, moreover, that cen-

turies ago in traditional gardens, gardeners were planting certain grasses and reeds and bushes because of the specific noises they produced.”

The boundary between the professions of landscape architect and sound artist in these cases is a thin one, but very clear for Veenstra. Max Neuhaus, the sound artist, was responsible for the composition of the sound palette of ‘The Aural Garden’. And sound artist Radboud Mens created the nine dif-

As an architect I do not engage in the “artistic”’ aspect.

ferent “pieces” that activates the rustling of the birch trees in the ‘Composed Nature’ project. Veenstra: “As an architect I can’t be responsible for the “artistic” aspects.”’

PET PROJECTS

Veenstra is quick to emphasise that permanent sound art in public spaces, such as in Klankenbos, is not the primary activity of LoLa. He calls the noise-related initiatives he does “pet projects”’. “The average client can’t really see it. On the whole they want pretty photographs and drawings. But there are a number of interesting projects in the Netherlands, of course, such as the ‘Culture Mile’ in Enschede, where you can find a number of special sound installations, or the ‘Metroality’ project in Tilburg”. ‘Metroality’ is the work of Marry Overtoom, who has placed an imaginary subway network in three offices in the city centre. Nearby is a grid on the ground, which recreates the sounds and vibrations of underground trains. This creates the illusion that the three buildings are connected underground.

“Sound art is planted firmly in the world of “percentage agreements” (contracts in which a fixed percentage of a construction budget governed by the state or municipality is devoted to art, ed.). But in new buildings this kind of art is not really practical,” says Veenstra.

“When you work with electricity, parts can break. And these kinds of arrangements do not provide for a maintenance budget.

Therefore, steel or stone sculptures are chosen because, once they are erected, noone has to worry anymore.”

DE STAAT

LoLa’s short term projects don’t involve any sound art. Except one, known as: ‘The Melody Road’ in Nijmegen. “That is something we are working on together with Geert Jan Hobijn. You know those thickly ridged, painted lines on the motorway? The rumble strips? If you drive over them, you hear a sound. You can, of course, vary that sound by varying the ridges. And if you do it well, you can even get a melody. We have already calculated that we can make a melody of about ten seconds’ length if we have a continuously straight stretch of road - of approximately two hundred and fifty metres.

And if you assume that the motorist drives exactly fifty kilometers per hour. We asked the rock group De Staat to write the melody.

And we want to colour these rumble strips a different colour than white. The nice thing is that sound art in this context becomes to all intents and purposes - pop music.”

www lolaweb.nl musica.be/klankenbos twitter/peterbruyn peterbruyn.wordpress.com

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Composer and Poet

ROZALIE HIRS

author Griet Menschaert pictures Sara Anke Morris

The versatile poet-composer Rozalie Hirs created ‘Curvices’ for Klankenbos: an app that enriches your walk with compositions in which text and music merge. Hirs turned ten of her own English language poems into an interactive song cycle.

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Rozalie Hirs is known for her diverse artistic activities. She composes vocal, orchestral and electronic music, but she also writes poetry, and creates digital poetry. The poems that she has recreated as music in the ‘Curvices’ app come from her first English-language publication, ‘Curvices and Musicles’, which is about a journey across an unnamed continent. With the free app you can experience the location in a more personal way, as opposed to using a conventional piece of music, or a CD. As a matter of fact, ‘Curvices’ has two other lives outside of Klankenbos. During the last edition of ‘November Music’, a modified version was presented to The Citadel in Den Bosch, and from this autumn you can also use the app to explore the grounds and surroundings of Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, in Amsterdam. Hirs created the app in collaboration with designer duo Cox & Grusenmeyer, app developer Yvan Vander Sanden and architect Machiel Spaan. They helped her to design a special GPS system, so the lyrics and the compositions can be listened to within a defined place. “The app turns the location into a defined space for experiencing the composition,” says Hirs. The GPS system on your mobile phone also activates animations and other interactions alongside the song cycle; all of which you can experience while strolling through the gardens and

quays along the IJ. By repositioning your course, you also can determine the music and poetry.

Intuïtie en berekening gaan bij mij hand in hand.

Some works are conceived as spoken word compositions, with soundtracks: “I think it’s important that you not only hear the songs, but experience the lyrics as poetry. If texts are not sung but spoken you can hear, through the narration, the internal melody of the text itself.” Hirs combines the speaking voice (which, incidentally, is her own) with “self-synthesised” sounds. The scientist in her - Hirs was trained as a chemist is interested in finding the right frequencies and amplitudes to make pleasant sounds: “Intuition and calculation go hand in hand with me.” Her poems are often associative.

“They are about humanity in the round; feelings, thoughts, identity…”

Hirs is currently working on a piece for the Asko|Schönberg ensemble. “It is a piece for 21 musicians, a spectral piece based on up-

per tones, which I calculate via frequency modulations and other techniques. What interests me is what we find aurally interesting in harmonies; and how we bring these intuitive experiences in line with our physical characteristics.”

In 2015 Musica made an open call for sound poetry, resulting in over 350 submissions from Belgium and the Netherlands. From the entries, eight sound poems were chosen. These eight works now form a poetic journey through Klankenbos. The poems will be brought together - along with contributions from Maud Vanhauwaert - in a publication. More information on the sound poem publication - and Klankenbos - can be found on this link: musica.be/nieuw-gedichtenparcours10-jaar-klankenbos

live Rozalie Hirs will perform during the 10th-anniversary Klankenbos sound art event on October 18th, 2015.

More information: musica.be/10-jaar-klankenbos www rozaliehirs.nl grietmenschaert.blogspot.com grietmenschaert.be facebook.com/studiogrietmenschaert

SPEC I AL: K L A N K E N BOS

CLICK & WIN: EXCLUSIVE VIP PACKAGE!

From Love Songs to Silence

PARTY!

10 YEARS OF KLANKENBOS

Do you love sound art? Are you a fan of Klankenbos, or are you eager to explore this unique collection of sound art outdoors? Celebrate the 10th anniversary of Klankenbos on Sunday October 18 in the presence of national and international sound artists. Three pairs of VIP tickets are being given away by Musica for this special event.

This exclusive package includes: > An experienced Klankenbos guide to accompany you on a journey of discovery through Klankenbos > A meet & greet with sound artist & poet Rozalie Hirs > A copy of the wonderful Klankenbos catalogue packed with pictures and extra information

Musica celebrates a decade of exceptional outdoor sound art.

Come to Klankenbos on Saturday October 18th for an afternoon full of sound art, music, poetry and silence among the trees of Klankenbos.

You will experience surprising and exciting performances from Dutch poet-composer Rozalie Hirs (see p. 97), French artist Tony di Napoli, visual artist and musician Peter Jacquemyn & Champ d’Action, German sound artist Erwin Stache, and young Flemish sound artist Stijn Demeulenaere (1).

The renowned Logos Robot Orchestra plays creations from young Sound-Mine composers, and the Dutch sound artist Hans Van Koolwijk (2) will present a “balloon performance”.

> A copy of a thematic publication based round sound and listening; produced in association with the 10 years of Klankenbos festivities with the works of the famous Flemish poet Maud Vanhauwaert among others Go to gonzocircus.com and get involved!

Children can enjoy themselves with the LOVE SONG KLANKENBOS installation, as well as a fun “children’s size” walking track through the forest.

Ten years after the creation of the first installations, Klankenbos has grown to become an international collection of permanent sound art installations that is unique in Europe.

On October 18, the Klankenbos guides will be happy to lead you round installations such as “Houses of Sound”, “Composed Nature”, and “Het Geheim Van Horst”.

As icing on the cake, Musica presents four brand new sound systems: a musical playground item from Laura Maes (see p.101), an interactive audio walk with mobile app from Dutch sound artist Bart van Dongen, the portable/wearable “SelfSimulator”, by Dane Simon Steen-Andersen and a monumental instrument made from PVC by Logos Foundation (3).

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(1)

HIGH LIGHTS (1) Sound artist Stijn Demeulenaere recently travelled to South Africa and Iceland in order to make audio recordings of the spectacular nature in both countries. This resulted in countless hours of unedited recording material; whether sultry and subtropical or icy and northern. Demeulenaere will be resident in Klankenbos between 14 and 26 September to make a synthesis of these two sound travels. He will create a soundscape tailored to the installation, “Radio Forest�, where the sounds will reverberate through the wood of that structure.

PRACTICAL

18 October 2015 13.00-17.30 Free entrance!

Provinciaal Domein Dommelhof, Neerpelt (BE) Info & programme: musica.be/10-jaar-klankenbos An organisation of Musica, Impulse Centre for Music In collaboration with: Provinciaal Domein Dommelhof, Gonzo (circus), UiTmetVlieg.be, Gemeente Neerpelt, PNEM Sound Art Festival en BesteBuren.

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(2) Hans Van Koolwijk will direct a group of amateur musicians from the Klas Experimentele Muziek from Oud-Heverlee, while releasing 65 helium-filled balloons. The helium will escape through narrow tubes that will produce a loud tone. The balloons will float away from the public whilst their pitch steadily rises. After several minutes, the pressure is released and the balloons will slowly descend.

(3) PVC: a polyvalent, movable and functional instrument, suitable for both children and adults. The monumental installation with detachable modules invites free improvisation and interaction with strangers; regardless of musical idioms and age restrictions. Come and test it for yourself on October 18!