Abandonee

(2006-2007)

The production is a spatialized-electroacoustic composition using the technical potential of the Ambisonic System of the Cube at IEM Graz.

The sound material for this composition is taken from a real situation. It consists of the repeatedly carried out miking of a particular resonating system and of its situation within its surrounding space. For this purpose we used a soundfield-microphone, several accelerometers, piezo-electric transducers and Schoeps condenser-microphones.

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The resonating system that has been recorded in that way is a destroyed grand piano (Blüthner company, Leipzig), left behind on an abandoned construction site in Belgium. Weather influences and vandalism have destroyed the grand piano to a great extent: the keys are quarried out, the chords are partly broken, the timber frame is distorted, parts of the wood are completely missing or else broken off, burst and scattered throughout the whole room. The former instrument can still be recognized as such. Yet, through the described influences, it has been transformed to something different that resembles the original resonating object only remotely.

We tested this sound-producing object at the place of discovery for its new characteristics and thereby concentrated mainly on the sound-space aspects and potential as well as on its acoustic effect in its current location.

The acoustic situation that we found disintegrates, by our means of miking and playing the instrument, into points in time and points of stimulation. These have been newly arranged both technically and artistically as well as transformed dynamically at the Ambisonic Studio of IEM later on.

The inside and outside (i.e. the surrounding space) of the resonating object have been fanned out in the sound-space-composition by means like spatial fragmentation, displacement, different levels cutting into each other, diffusion, selective contrasting, frictions and assuming changing spatial conditions (agglomeration – merging – equalising – stretching – contracting – blurring).

Premiere: 26.06.2007 at the Cube, IEM in Graz
Double-CD since Summer 2008.

Featured Jan./Feb. 2009 at DEGEM Webradio and in Mai 2009 at SWR2 - Music special - RAIDIOPHON. Abanonee was invited by the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, April 2009.