The exhibition is an arrangement of three elements: namely figures, stereo systems and lists of names arranged as abstractly concrete compositions on canvas. The figures are vaguely strong characters — their presence conveying a kind of blunt spirituality held up by disjoint gestures produced from their very building materials: old clothes congealed by resin. They are human in size but drained in volume. Their thinned out appearance lending itself to the overall existential-utopian aura in the room, where animated gestures appear in company with various unassuming compositions of Hi-Fi systems. Yet, this sculptural anima remains abstract. Like materialized ghosts; possibly echoing a cast of actors or people on the guest lists, displaying their moves, the foolish ones.
The speaker systems are functional, yet altered. Casually piled sideways, pointing into various directions — backwards, forewards, upwards, downwards (depending on the view) — they make for a dilapidated surround system, emanating sound in various volumes and directions simultaneously. An unpredictable sound mass is the result that can only be fully experienced by actively moving around the structures. If their visual appearance resembles a kind of phenomenological study, the sound that is playing hints at recording as a daily undergoing, a personal pursuit. The chosen tracks are taken from the artists archive and are made up of multiple snapshots of recordings ranging from studio productions to phone recordings that document mundane everyday sounds. The collection of tracks is interspersed with pauses and reworked for the specific speaker configuration it is played from; all of them containing similar material compiled in a different order and with slight alterations. Where the figurative sculptures lay bare essential humane dullness, the speaker systems aspire to function as autonomous instruments, breaking with preeminent conditions for the consumption of music and the act of entertainment itself.

Fotocredit: Tobias Spichtig
Courtesy of the Artists and LambdaLambdaLambda

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