DISCS – Ellen Moffat & Michael Koch

DISCS

Michael Koch & Ellen Moffat
Surface Resonance

Surface Resonance is a sound installation using the site and architecture of the gallery as material amplifiers. The gallery windows function as speakers using transducers to transfer the digital signal that has been generated in the computer. The composition is structured around musical references – harmonics, partials and frequency modulation. Six distinct tones are base settings that are modulated using frequency and temporal shifts as well as random modification of amplitude. This approach references the serial method of musical composition. As such, the sound installation is doubly situated in Vienna: as an installation that uses the architectural features of the site as resonators, and as a composition that references the serial method of the Viennese School. 

Sound impacts on the body as tangible, felt sensation that supports corporeal, spatial and collective relations. As a phenomenon, sound has potential to connect diverse sounding bodies through differentiated rhythms as a new symbolic space. I believe the sound experience has capacity for sensorial knowing, communication and social relations.

My interest in resonance as sound relations explores site, space, materials, embodiment and the sound experience. The window is a transparent physical membrane that connects interior and exterior space through visual, sonic and as haptic elements. Sound can be heard and felt as tangible, embodied experience. Ambient sound of the interior or exterior sites mixes with the generated sound, creating an evolving and fluctuating composition as an embodied sound experience. By analogy, the composition suggests shifting identities and differentiated sounding bodies of the social.

Since 2002, my sound projects have ranged from immersive sound installations of fixed compositions using speech fragments, to electroacoustic and text ‘instruments’, to live performative projects with constructed and ad hoc sites as soundboards, listening chambers and recording studios. These works reflect my technical and conceptual exploration of voice, spatialized sound, extended techniques for sound-making, acoustic materials and co-authoring.

Born in Toronto, I currently live in Saskatoon. My formal education includes BA (Anthropology); BFA (Studio); MFA (Sculpture). My art production includes independent, collaborative and interdisciplinary projects with performance artists – dance, music, vocalists – writers, computer scientists, mechanical engineers and community groups.

Ellen Moffat

Pictures of the exhibition

DISCS

Ellen Moffat,Sound und Performance Künstlerin aus Kanada trafen einander anlässlich der Ausstellung Peripherie Influence 2016 in Saskatoon.

Michael Koch, Gründungsmitglied der Schleifmühlgasse12-14 ist Maler, Bildhauer, New Media Artist, er ist aber auch DJ und liebt elektronische Musik.

Ellen Moffat macht Geräusch spürbar, Michael Koch übersetzt Töne in Bildpunkte, discs. Diese Discs beziehen sich auch auf die Tonabnehmer an den Fensterscheiben, und schon schließt sich wieder ein Kreis. Es geht um schließen, es geht aber auch um auslassen, den Raum zwischen den Medien, zwischen den Tönen und Zeichen, zwischen dem Betrachter, Befühler und dem Resonanzkörper. Körper schmiegen sich an vibrierende Fensterscheiben und lassen komplexe Tonabfolgen durch die Muskel strömen. Beobachtet werden sie dabei von zwei springenden Punkten, Augen?

Ellen Moffat bezieht ihre Arbeiten oft auf die Überflutung des täglichen Lärms, von dem wir umhüllt werden, ohne auch nur irgendetwas in Frage zu stellen. Vielmehr noch, wir haben es verlernt mit Ruhe zu leben. Dieses Thema stellt Ellen Moffat zur Diskussion, indem sie sich auch mit der inneren Stimme beschäftigt, mit dem Verhältnis zwischen innerem und äußerem Sound: Atmen _ Denken _Flüstern _ Knurren. in den Tönen liegt so viel Potential, welches ungedeckt vor sich hindämmert.  Es ist aber unser Sound, der uns charakterisiert, von uns gemacht wird, uns letztendlich ausmacht. Bei ihrer Installation in der Schleifmühlgasse 12-14 versucht Ellen Moffat diese Grenzüberschreitung auch bildlich darzustellen, indem sie die Fensterscheibe als Verstärker verwendet. Mehr darüber darf ich nicht sagen, aber ich hoffe die Neugierde treibt sie zur Vernissage.

Michael Koch pendelt zwischen Malerei, Skulpturen, Neuen Medien und Musik, er liebt elektronische Musik und lässt sich auch in seinen bildnerischen Arbeiten sehr davon beeinflussen. Frei nach Walter Benjamin gehört zum Schauen nicht nur die Bewegung der Augen, sondern ebenso deren Stilllegung. Um diese Stilllegung im Blick handelen die Malerei und die Skulpturen von Michael Koch. Er versucht Musik zu visualisieren, beziehungsweise Musik in Farben und Formen zu übersetzen, wie bei seinen Ausstellungs-Kooperationen mit Karl Salzmann. Die Spezialität Kochs ist die Bedeutung der Auslassungen, die Ruhe oder Pausen zwischen den Tönen sichtbar zu machen. James Blake baute in seinem Song „Limit to your love“ Pausen ein, die gerade so lange sind, die Spannung zu halten, und doch so einprägsam, dass der Song eine neue Dimension erreicht. Die Malerei Kochs, ähnlich wie seine Holzskulpturen oder Wandreliefs, ähneln der Struktur des Songs von Blake, er beschäftigt sich mit den leeren Flächen, den Löchern zwischen den Farben oder Formen. Auslassungen, ähnlich wie bei Heinrich Heines Gedichten, können äußerst Vielfältig sein. Die Sprache des Ausdrucks durchzieht ein Lücken-Netzt, welches die Suggestion sprengt, die Assoziation anregt. Zu diesem diskontinuierlichen Raum gehören Auslassungspunkte und Gedankenstriche, Leerzeilen und absolute Stille, leere Flächen zwischen den Farben. Die demonstrative Auslassung wird zur Aussage. Die subtilen Interpretationsmöglichkeiten öffnen neue Sichtweisen.

English Version

Ellen Moffat, sound installation and performative artist, born in Toronto, living and working in Saskatoon, has a quite good connection to Vienna. She has visited here 5 years during a 4-month residency in Paris.

Michael Koch, a member of the Artist Run Space Schleifmühlgasse 12-14 since the first days, is oscillating between genres as well as between analog and digital. He participated in the group exhibition „Peripheral Influence“ 2016 at AKA in Saskatoon.

The exhibition deals with waves, feel able, hear able – transforming sound in a touchable and visible medium, using architecture as speakers, sound transformers. Ellen Moffat fills the gallery with a special and complex composition. The special cartridges are disc shaped, the form was picked up by Michael Koch, who composed a disc line, with moving elements. His chalk boards are triggering the visitor to complete a circle – a disc.

The implementation of their media and the interweaving of different genres ends up in an certainly outstanding art experience.

Ellen Moffat makes noise noticeable, Michael Koch translates sounds into image points, discs. These discs also refer to the pickups on the window panes, and a circle closes. It is about closing, but it is also a matter of omitting, the space between the media, between the sounds and signs, between the viewer, the feeler and the resonator. Bodies nestle against vibrating windowpanes and allow complex sound sequences to flow through the muscles. Are they being watched by two leaping points, eyes?

Ellen Moffat often refers to the flooding of the daily noise of which we are enveloped, without questioning anything. Rather, we have forgotten to live with peace. Her present approach is connected with inner and outward voices, integrating breath i.e. or even more the physical body experience. Sound impacts on the body as tangible, felt sensation that supports corporeal, spatial and collective relations. Ellen Moffat also tries to visualize crossing borders by using the window as a sound transformer.  As a phenomenon, sound has potential to connect diverse sounding bodies through differentiated rhythms as a new symbolic space. Ellen Moffat  believes the sound experience has capacity for sensorial knowing, communication and social relations.

Surface Resonance is a sound installation using the site and architecture of the gallery as material amplifiers. The gallery windows function as speakers using transducers to transfer the digital signal that has been generated in the computer. The composition is structured around musical references – harmonics, partials and frequency modulation. Six distinct tones are base settings that are modulated using frequency and temporal shifts as well as random modification of amplitude. This approach references the serial method of musical composition. As such, the sound installation is doubly situated in Vienna: as an installation that uses the architectural features of the site as resonators, and as a composition that references the serial method of the Viennese School.

Moffat´s interest in resonance as sound relations explores site, space, materials, embodiment and the sound experience. The window is a transparent physical membrane that connects interior and exterior space through visual, sonic and as haptic elements. Ambient sound of the interior or exterior sites mixes with the generated sound, creating an evolving and fluctuating composition as an embodied sound experience. By analogy, the composition suggests shifting identities and differentiated sounding bodies of the social.

Like in Michael Kochs paintings the most important thing is the gap between the elements of his mural reliefs, like in James Blake´s song Limit to your love.  Michael Koch is a contemporary fine artist and DJ and he is interested in visualization of sound and the silent in between. Elisions, like in Heinrich Heines Poems, are characteristic for the paintings as well as for the wall reliefs. Dashes, blank lines, space characters, absolute silence are part of that dysfunctional space. The tongue of expression is lanced by a net of cavities. The demonstrative gaps are a statement. The possibility of subtile interpretation opens a new range of perception. He is checking every position of his deeper impact for fulfilling the perfect line.

Denise Parizek, 2017