61 (2015) is the first work out of Stijn Demeulenaere’s artistic research on the phenomenology of sound, or the phenomenology of listening, and was developed during a residency at Overtoon. The installation researches his own history as a listener. In 61 he’s working with the recordings made in his parental home a couple of years ago. The house itself has disappeared since then.
61 works with recordings of room tones – the signature background sounds of a room – and a special surround sound setup, using normal and hyperdirectional speakers. The hyperdirectional speakers are mounted on moving pan/tilt units, thus creating a continuously moving grid of sound.
Culture Crew constructed these pan/tilt units allowing fine control over the position and motion of the directional speakers. Culture Crew also provided custom software to control these units from the audio software that was used for the composition. This way, the composer could exactly tune the motion of the motors on the flow of the sound. Also, extra efforts were made to make the system as silent as possible to not interfere with the audio.
Photo’s © Joeri Thiry, Stijn Demeulenaere and Culture Crew
