The piece „Karl Ortmann“ pays homage to the
German cartographer from
Ilmenau (*1817 - †1879). His life’s work consisted of finding a way to
illustrate social structures of cities within the context of maps.
According to his theories maps should reflect various aspects of the
cohabitation of a city’s residents. Karl Ortmann described his research
as follows: “Nicht bloß die leblose Materie der Gebäude und
Straßen, die den sozialen Aspekt gänzlich negieren, sondern
gerade das Zusammenspiel zwischen Wohnraum und
Einkommensverhältnis, zwischen Wohndichte und gesellschaftlichem
Stand der Bewohner sollen erhellt werden.” * Karl Ortmann
remained unknown during his lifetime and it is just by chance that we
know of his concepts that were never realised.
Our piece is exclusively made of sounds of the city of Karlsruhe
(southern Germany), recorded during one week in September 2005. A
central structural element for us was a set of recordings we made
during the night before (and the morning of) the German polling day in
2005. For approximately twelve hours, we recorded three minutes of
audio every thirty minutes, using two microphones set up on a balcony
in a residential area. These recordings were cut together, leaving
their chronological order (and the sound quality) unchanged. This
artificial soundscape is playing throughout the piece with one short
interruption. Sometimes inaudible, sometimes present as a main element
it structures the piece. Other recordings we used were made during
daytime in different parts of the city (e.g. noise of streetcars,
people playing basketball, sounds in a park etc). Next we started to
create sound processing tools to use in COOPER, especially designed to
fit our needs for a social-cartographic sound: a grid filter, a special
granular tool etc. The recordings were then processed and structured
with COOPER’s meta-parameter control feature. This way we obtained new
aspects of the original recordings, resulting in a range of sound
material reaching from pure and recognisable to extremly artificial and
abstract sounds.
Our intention was to create a moment in which the listener would
realise the urban origin of the sound material, a moment where the
space (both the concert room and the room of the speakers) breaks open
and it becomes impossible to determine whether a certain sound is a
plain recording or a processed one and whether it is happening in- or
outside the concert room.
The whole piece could be described as a non-linear accumulative process
of recorded sound components. The last few minutes of the piece are
almost pure unprocessed soundscapes from the residential area, enriched
with only very few processed sounds. Apart from the fact that
even a plain recording of reality does not necessarily represent
reality, the possibility that the recordings (or even more) are
actually faked could arise.
* „Not only
the matter of buildings and streets, entirely negating the social
aspects, but the combination of living space and status of income, the
combination of population density and the status in society of the
dwellers should be explored.” From: Ortmann, Karl: Eine Einführung
in die Sozialkartographie, Dresden 1864, S. 294.
first performance was at the
turning sounds festival
in warsaw, 25.09.2005
excerpt