raul keller moondur / shifter — soundinstallation 7 August 2014 — 31 August 2014

Residency and Exhibition Project at MEINBLAU project room

Start of residency: 7 August 2014
Open Studio: 31 July 2014 at 7 p.m.
Vernissage: 6 August 2014 at 7 p.m.
Finissage: 31 August 2014 to midnight

Estonian artist Raul Keller belongs to a new generation of Eastern European artists who bring together composition and performance, media and sound art in their own unique way. His works virtuously move in the most varied areas of contemporary art. They encompass place-specific sound installations, performance and free improvisation, radio art, photography and video art as well as experimental rock music. His art is almost always procedural — and this includes his »moondur / shifter« sound installation.
At the centre of the installation is a large sound sculpture implanted in the high-ceilinged atrium of the exhibition space: an object suspended from the ceiling made of two large acoustic membranes that are connected and positioned above one another and made of specially treated canvas. A round membrane hangs roughly one meter above the floor, a square one about five meters above that and directly under the skylight. Under the cloth, which is primed in black, are low bass loudspeakers that cause the membranes to oscillate depending on pitch and acoustic pressure. The monochrome canvases transform into animated, rhythmically oscillating or quivering surfaces.
The idea of vertical dynamics that defines the sculptural aspects of the work also forms the core of the acoustic side of the installation. Vertical acoustic shifts and movements between the upper and lower membrane traverse the space. In addition, the sound movements in the sculpture are absorbed by a microphone, filtered and played back together with other acoustic textures via four small loudspeakers in the corners of the exhibition spaces as a type of atmospheric primer in the space. Light microtonal shifts energize the sounds as well as the space-specific reflexions and feedbacks. A permanent river of sounds that are themselves in a constant reshaping process flows up and down between the membranes. At the same time, their oscillation patterns are projected on the membranes as moving images.
»moondur« is Estonian for dislocation or shift. Raul Keller uses it here in a double sense: on the one hand as a spatial shift of surfaces, sounds or sound movements, and on the other hand in a figurative sense as a perceptive shift between acoustic and visual processes.
Raul Keller’s exhibition launches the »singuhr-projects« new residency programme, in which artistic production becomes an even more prominent part of the work itself. Project residencies for national and international sound artists, connected with talks and presentations and followed by a final exhibition project with a space-related sound installation, form the contents of a new modular programme that will form »singuhr — projects« artistic focal point for the coming years.

singuhr — projects
MEINBLAU project room, Auf dem  Pfefferberg, House 5
Christinenstr. 18-19, 10119 Berlin
Opening hours (7 August — 31 August 2014): Tuesday — Sunday 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Organized by singuhr e.V.

Supported by: Bezirksamt Pankow von Berlin,  Initiative Neue Musik Berlin e.V. and Meinblau e.V.
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