About the Work

PIANO is a three-part installation exploring the phenomenon of tinnitus as both symptom and metaphor. Combining a sculptural work in waxed cotton cord with a sound piece, it gives form to the intangible - turning inner noise into a spatial, physical presence. The cords radiate outward like concretised vibrations, suggesting sound made visible, while the accompanying audio evokes the unsettling, intrusive nature of tinnitus. Installed at the centre of the room, the work invites viewers to walk around it, circling and listening, inhabiting the threshold between body, sound, and space.

TEXT FROM THE SOUND WORK

Under the category, subjective sound, belongs Tinnitus. An inner ring or buzz of the ear. A kind of psychedelic sound. There, shaped by presence. Categories, abstract, not only figuratively speaking, spines. Helps.

By giving the vertebrate shape. Only vertebrates can taste. E.g. Tolerance, as a category.  Category is backbone. An objective construction. The tolerance sits in the soundproof box, to hear if the body is alive. Inside the left ear, the sounds push forward to take over the body's attention. Blast its framework for normative monotony. It is neither melodic nor rhythmic. It is more experimental. Like being at a hearing test. At the otorhinolaryngologists. Pretty instrumental, except for the moments when it squeaks.

Hisses. Scratches. Screaming. Silence.

It experiments with the body's attention. The sound as an instrument of torture. Unpleasant.  Painful. Waiting for the breaks, a deserved rest. A space. Between two structures. A doorstep.  Until the cacophony, the `ugly 'mix of different elements, takes over again. A non-wonderful mix of different elements. Nevertheless.

A crescendo of differences. Like a Greek temple, maintained by pillars of all times. Axes.  Crisscrossing. The tolerance for sounds in the room is put to the test. In the left corner, in the room. It settles. Listening. The subjective sound screams, screams. Howls. Howls. Bites. If it had a rhythm.

If I foresaw the rhythm. Then maybe it would, not, suffocate me. Like listening to the second hand. Instead, the hairs carry the vibrations against the temple of interpretation, in the very innermost space. A place where the sounds are thrown around. One two Three. Of the architecture of the ears, just as in the lungs. A hairy, numbered, curve that can be found everywhere. If we listen. They Vibrate. Caressed by the air. Soft. Weak. Gently. Like listening to the plants, singing their vibrations. I see them rocking to the sound of your voice. He says it's the wind. I think that's thé sound. Your sound embraces the bodies from within. Spreads like rings in their inner garden of waters. On the walls, as shadows. The flowers open. Again.

© Camilla Howalt