meatgrinder

MEATGRINDER is an audio play staged in space. At three listening stations ("Gamma Radiation", "Un", "Null Layer"), parts of a narrative can be experienced via headphones and precision speakers. In this setting the radio play is detached from its linearity and can be experienced as a fragmentary story in space.

The work is based on texts created during a research project on the architecture of the 2000s. The structure, aesthetics, economic logic of contemporary logistics companies were examined. Particular focus was placed on the factor of invisible work, implemented, lived and experienced by people in spaces characterized by industrial rationalization.

The literary core of the work is the chamber play. The chamber play is told from three perspectives "protagonist", "world", "director", each of which can be heard on different channels and loudspeakers. The voices, sound fragments and drones are choreographed in such a way that classical dialogue situations, but also condensations, superimpositions, blends are created in the listening space.
The audio piece is reproduced digitally through directional loudspeakers attached to various objects. Using special ultrasound devices, the sound is projected directly onto the surface of the listeners' skin and is not transmitted through the air, as is the case with other directional sound methods.

 

Supported by
Kunststiftung NRW
Kultursekretariat Nürnberg

Excerpts

Part I (Gammastrahlung)

MEATGRINDER I (gammastrahlung) is a 4-channel audio installation. Audio tracks are reproduced in the room via four directional loudspeakers. Each track/loudspeaker corresponds to a voice in the audio piece. The loudspeakers are partly directed towards the listeners, partly arranged in the room. Speech is projected directly to the listeners via ultrasonic speakers. The sound is experienced very physically and perceived exclusively at the listening position.

 

Steel, wood and aluminum profiles,
directional loudspeaker, ultrasonic loudspeaker,

Steel welded, aluminum profiles 40 x 40 mm, heavy duty foam,
screen prints on sound absorbers made of mineral wool


AUDIO:

Part II (Un)

The object "MEATGRINDER II (Un)" provides the acoustic background information to the Meatgrinder cycle. The object houses 8 cassettes, whose titles refer to details in a nameless building. Building elements, corridors, corners, objects, installations and systems. The cassettes contain abstract sounds (drones), radio play fragments, noise, sound folding through hall experiments and alienated field recordings.
The object "Un" can be read as a soundtrack to the Meatgrinder cycle. At the same time, it represents an object of its own, aesthetically located in a different time.