Clemens Winkler «Sense of Orientation»

Shedhalle / Exhibitions / Life Wire / Artists

Clemens Winkler (FRG): Sense of Orientation, 2011 (photo: C. Winkler)

Sense of Orientation, 
Installation, 2011

Clemens Winkler is interested in the perception of electromagnetic fields and waves that surround us everywhere, which we, however, do not perceive. Every device or appliance, lamps just like mobile phones, household appliances just like power lines produce such “electric clouds” – alternating magnetic fields. The low frequencies of such fields can be transformed directly into sound waves. Clemens Winkler hiked the Swedish landscape carrying a receiver he himself had built, which indicated the particular electric climate through acoustic signals, listening to and following the sounds. He embarks on a perceptional adventure that is far from a visually enraptured contemplation of the landscape or a listening to an inner silence. He collects the droning and hissing, the humming and buzzing as well as the extremely noisy crackling he encounters. He discovers particular, widely differing sound patterns with varying pitch, rhythm, and melody.
The acoustic room installation reproduces this experiences in the exhibition. The recordings of electric overhead wires in Sundsvall, of the transformer station Kristinehamni, of the transformer station Sandviken, of power supply lines in Fjällâsen, and of the hydroelectric plant Vilhelmina are represented by “wires” plugged into loudspeakers, thus transforming the frequencies into visible oscillations. The installation “Sense of Orientation” reveals what’s hidden and invisible in our electrically wired reality. ”My vision is to transform the transcription of information into something natural, into something directly perceivable and understandable”, Clemens Winkler says, wanting to use, by perception, the creative power of our environment in different ways than up to now.

link: /clemenswinkler.com