+50° 36' 16.27“ +11° 34' 33.45“ Drachenschwanz [+50° 36' 16.27“ +11° 34' 33.45“ Dragon Tail]
Installation | 2010
Funded by the Women’s Promotion Fund
What might an acoustic landscape look like? While its visual counterpart forms as we move further away, we only perceive sounds within several hundred metres from a location. We can see a church tower from several kilometres away but the chiming bells are lost to us.
The installation »+50° 36‘ 16.27”, +11° 34‘ 33.45” Drachenschwanz« [Dragon Tail] examines how the sounds of a landscape can be united with its visual representation. The object of investigation is the area around what is the »Drachenschwanz« [Dragon Tail], a narrow jut of land in the Saale River near Drognitz in Thuringia. Its acoustic diversity is particularly evident in the interplay between humans and nature: a camp site, quacking ducks on the water, the sound of motors, a herd of bleating goats, the noise of daily life in a nearby village. As the visitor enters the installation, she perceives a multitude of various sounds. But as she approaches a certain section of the photo, she begins to pick out acoustic details until only individual sound events can be heard.
In the same way our eyes sweep across a picture, visitors can direct their acoustic focus by consciously moving about the room. This enables them to perceive sounds at different levels, thereby making the acoustic landscape transparent.