Norge – et lydrike, Norway remixed: a sound installation

Abstract

This paper describes a large, interactive sound installation that was presented in Oslo during October 2002. The installation, in broad terms, brought the presence of the whole country into the one location through sound, and made the sound available for the public as material to play with or explore in a more structured fashion. The sonic results were streamed to the Internet, together with images from the exterior of the installation. The installation was located at the central train station in an area where thousands of people pass through every day. The curatorial idea was developed by two institutions, as an answer to their missions of providing interesting sonic material and events for the whole country. The idea was given concrete form by three composers, and brought up on a national level through co-arrangement with a large festival of contemporary music. Funding for the installation was provided by both private and public organisations. The installation serves as an example on how a large and complex work of art can be developed through institutional curatorial effort, artistic intentions and activity, and commercial interests. The installation maintained a high degree of artistic integrity while being accessible and attractive for large audiences.

Materiality in Sound Art

“…Just as with Hiller, this work was created in dialogue with the material. I started my work on the repositioning of audio streams with the installation Norway Remixed in 2002 (Rudi 2003). However, where the audio streams in Norway Remixed were transformed through signal processing of the sound itself, the sounds in Doppelgänger were transformed by mapping analysis data from the audio streams to acoustic sound objects.…”

new communications technology in the context of interactive sound art: an empirical analysis

“…Collaborative musical compositions and sound art have been realised in a number of ways and with different objectives. In the project Norge et lydrike, Norway Remixed, the curatorial idea was 'to bring the whole country together through sound', so 'the local branch offices of the broadcasting corporation' were supplying sound material 'in order to secure authenticity' and 'actively counteract speculations of centralisation' (Rudi 2003). In their article on The Interactive Dance Club, Ulyate and Bianciardi define the goals as: (i) 'to allow group and individual participation', (ii) 'create a compelling social environment ', and (iii) to 'deliver the euphoria of the artistic experience to "unskilled" participants' (Ulyate and Bianciardi 2002).…”

“…The art activities briefly described above strongly suggests diverse interpretations of the notion of 'participation' and the necessity for constant they both share the intention to create a soundscape that can communicate a sense of solidarity, in the first case by introducing an awareness of the political, and potentially exclusive aspects of music-making already in the curatorial concept. By letting a large number of individuals supply the input, according to the article the work succeeds in creating a fabric of references valid to a large number of visitors and thus creates 'building blocks of culture' (Rudi 2003). In the second case the visitors are invited to actively participate in the familiar environment of a dance club.…”