Interactive 3D Soundwalk on the Rheinauinsel, Köln, DE
8-Brücken Festival, 29.04.2022 – 8.05.2022
Sibylle Hauert / Atelier Hauert-Reichmuth (Concept und Production), Thomas Resch (Software Development), Volker Böhm (Sounds and Interaction)
Bidisha Das, Duhyoung Kim, Farah Wind, Jeesoo Hong, Anastasia Osoianu (Sounds), Tobias Hartmann (Beratung)
In cooperation with Hochschule für Musik, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (FHNW), Technischen Universität Berlin and Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln.
Water and land, nature and culture, a current party zone and echoes of an industrial past – the sounds of all of these can be explored on an interactive soundwalk.
Or perhaps the point is what they might sound like? The concept which Sibylle Hauert and her team originally tested on the Klybeckquai in Basel and have now transposed to Cologne’s Rheinauhafen may cause confusion in the walk’s participants: their headphones emit noises and compositions which may be perfectly matched to the surroundings they are currently passing through, or they might suggest totally different soundscapes. The sounds are controlled via geolocation and a sophisticated software which reacts to even the smallest movements of the head.
The difference between what participants see and hear creates a new hyper-reality; the question of what is real and what is virtual continuously poses itself. Ultimately, the question is: how does our perception work; how do we construct reality?
Here is a link to a radio report by Claudia Friedrich, broadcast on 4.5.2022 WDR, Tonart