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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
ECHELON Teufelsberg
Thomas Ankersmit,
Valerio Tricoli
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_ECHELON Teufelsberg_ is an acousmatic composition largely based on location recordings inside the abandoned Teufelsberg espionage facility. The piece intends to investigate both the peculiar acoustic character of the location – in particular its main radar dome – and its intimate and somehow metaphysical nature, which reverberates with 20th century myths and legends.
Sound science and a literary approach here gather in a way in which the two different approaches are no longer discernible.
The Teufelsberg is an artificial hill built from the rubble of war-damaged Berlin after the Second World War. It is the highest point in the city. The NSA, the US National Security Agency, built one of its largest listening stations on top of the hill, rumored to be part of the global Echelon intelligence-gathering network and capable of intercepting radio transmissions deep into the Soviet Union. The base has been abandoned since the early 1990s.
The main radar dome of the abandoned Teufelsberg SIGINT is a fascinating acoustic environment. The dome is constructed out of fiberglass hexagons with a concrete floor. Inside the space there is both a spectacular 20-second reverb as well as a very complex spatial arrangement of highly directional echoes. The duration, delay, direction, intensity and spectrum of the echoes change dramatically from place to place within the dome.
Links: http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/klangkunst/1293817/
Sound science and a literary approach here gather in a way in which the two different approaches are no longer discernible.
The Teufelsberg is an artificial hill built from the rubble of war-damaged Berlin after the Second World War. It is the highest point in the city. The NSA, the US National Security Agency, built one of its largest listening stations on top of the hill, rumored to be part of the global Echelon intelligence-gathering network and capable of intercepting radio transmissions deep into the Soviet Union. The base has been abandoned since the early 1990s.
The main radar dome of the abandoned Teufelsberg SIGINT is a fascinating acoustic environment. The dome is constructed out of fiberglass hexagons with a concrete floor. Inside the space there is both a spectacular 20-second reverb as well as a very complex spatial arrangement of highly directional echoes. The duration, delay, direction, intensity and spectrum of the echoes change dramatically from place to place within the dome.
Links: http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/klangkunst/1293817/
Thomas Ankersmit (NL), Valerio Tricoli (IT): electronic and acoustic instruments, on location recordings, composition. Additional recordings by Paul Paulun.
Produced by Marcus Gammel for Deutschlandradio Kultur
Produced by Marcus Gammel for Deutschlandradio Kultur
Thomas Ankersmit (NL) is a saxophonist, electronic musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam who combines abstract, intensely focused saxophone playing with hyper-kinetic analogue synth and computer improvisation. He also creates installation pieces that use sound, infrasound and “modifications to the acoustic characters of spaces” that disrupt the viewer/listener’s perception of the exhibition space and their presence within it.
Valerio Tricoli (IT) works as a concrete-music composer, improviser, sound installation artist, producer and sound engineer and curator. His compositions bridge musique concrète and conceptual forms of sound. He is one of the founders of the Bowindo label/collective and of 3/4HadBeenEliminated, a daring synthesis between improvisation, electro-acoustic composition and avant-rock sensitivity.
Valerio Tricoli (IT) works as a concrete-music composer, improviser, sound installation artist, producer and sound engineer and curator. His compositions bridge musique concrète and conceptual forms of sound. He is one of the founders of the Bowindo label/collective and of 3/4HadBeenEliminated, a daring synthesis between improvisation, electro-acoustic composition and avant-rock sensitivity.