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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.
Sonic Vista
Sam Auinger,
O+A,
Bruce Odland
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_Sonic Vista_ is an installation in a large-scale urban sound space (Deutschherrnbrücke, a railway bridge over the River Main) that helps an observer listen into the inner workings and complexity of the city and hear its patterns of sound as a whole in the moment. The urban sound sources are subtly transformed in real time, with “tuning tubes” enhancing harmonic patterns that the human brain can read out as music, as rhythm. The ear and eye of the observer become engaged in noticing the city’s sonic patterns and forming a new mental map of the sources of its vibrations. The effect is one of decoding new information, hearing the sound of your culture as a sophisticated whole organism for the very first time. It is the sound of ourselves, our “hive,” our cultural inputs and outputs heard as an advanced urban-music pattern.
The opportunity to make this dream come true came through the 20th anniversary of Frankfurt’s green belt, supported by the Deutsche Bahn, the City of Frankfurt, and the European Central Bank. The north and south portions of the green belt are to be joined together at this very spot, with its classic “postcard” view of Frankfurt. To draw people to our _Sonic Vista_ we create two large, bright spherical loudspeakers as visual icons and attractors, which can be seen from a long way away. But when people approach to investigate these objects they find a gentle field of sound—the city is harmonically altered, playing in real time.
Links: http://www.sonicvista.de/
The opportunity to make this dream come true came through the 20th anniversary of Frankfurt’s green belt, supported by the Deutsche Bahn, the City of Frankfurt, and the European Central Bank. The north and south portions of the green belt are to be joined together at this very spot, with its classic “postcard” view of Frankfurt. To draw people to our _Sonic Vista_ we create two large, bright spherical loudspeakers as visual icons and attractors, which can be seen from a long way away. But when people approach to investigate these objects they find a gentle field of sound—the city is harmonically altered, playing in real time.
Links: http://www.sonicvista.de/
Commissioned by: the City of Frankfurt am Main, Germany
with the support of the European Central Bank. Grün-Gürtel
project manager: Klaus Hoppe; technical realization: Werner
Lorke
with the support of the European Central Bank. Grün-Gürtel
project manager: Klaus Hoppe; technical realization: Werner
Lorke
**Sam Auinger** (AT) and **Bruce Odland** (US) are sonic thinkers, composers, and sound-artists. They founded O+A in 1987. Their central theme is “hearing perspective.” Their work is known for large-scale, public-space sound installations that transform city noise into harmony in real time. In 2009 O+A started the _Sonic Commons_ questioning the dominance of the visual culture in our perception of the world. _http://www.o-a.info_