Electrical Walks
Christina Kubisch has been working with electromagnetic induction for over 25 years. The Electrical Walks, which follow on from her sound installations, are an ongoing project in which listeners are invited to take part in a very special kind of walk through cities. Acoustic signals picked up from overground and underground electromagnetic fields are converted into sound by highly sensitive headphones. The range of sounds, their timbre and volume, vary from place to place, from country to country. The one thing they have in common is that they are everywhere, even in places we would not expect them to be. Lighting systems, transformers, electronic anti-theft devices, security cameras, high-voltage power lines, mobile phones, computers, WiFi devices, tram networks, aerials, cash machines, neon signs, mobile navigation systems, etc. all create a spectrum of electrical fields which – as if concealed by a cloak of invisibility – have an incredibly powerful presence.
Every country, every city has its own specific magnetic soundscape alongside the »global players«, or sounds that are much the same all over the world. Our perception of everyday reality changes when we listen to the electromagnetic fields. Familiar things appear in a different context. Nothing looks the way it sounds. And nothing sounds the way it looks. And everything looks a little different when we take off the headphones again.
In Electrical Walk »U«, an entire building is explored for the first time. Among other things, the usually silent works of art in the Museum Ostwall collection at the Dortmunder U centre become audible for visitors.
In cooperation with Museum Ostwall.
Christina Kubisch (Artist)
Born 1948 in Bremen, the composer and sound artist started working on projects in the fields of visual arts, media and music very early on. In the 1970s, she focused on gendercritical video performances, progressing to spatial sound installations with magnetic induction and other usually self-devised audiovisual techniques in the early 1980s. Since then, Christina Kubisch has also incorporated light and material structures in her work, blending visual and acoustic elements to create a new entity in often large format installations. After studying and teaching in Germany, Switzerland and Italy and serving as a guest professor in the Netherlands and France, she moved to Berlin in 1987. For years, she has experimented successfully with her electrical walks in public spaces, challenging audiences to perceive their everyday environment in a previously unfamiliar way through specially designed headphones. Another focus of her work is the subject of silence. Christina Kubisch has held numerous professorships and was Professor of Audiovisual Art at the Saarbrücken Academy of Fine Arts between 1994 and 2012. She is a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. Her work has been released on various labels including important records and Gruenrekorder.
