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The artist Oliver Hangl operates on the interface between
theatre, film and visual arts. Using various audiovisual tools
he turns the public space into a theatrical experience and
stages insights into the artificiality of scenarios of the
everyday. With Gürtel ON EAR 2 he resumed his wireless
headphones project series ON EAR, which had started in 2004,
in the framework of kunst im öffentlichen raum wien:
On EAR intended to fathom the medium wireless headphones in
its multiplicity of experimental arrangements outside the
institutional art, theatre and concert space. He calls this
series, which he has conceived himself, a test arrangement
in the public space; what’s more, in the middle of the
traffic on one of Vienna’s busiest main thoroughfares.
The glass cube with square outline on the median strip of
the Viennese Gürtel beltway, which was designed by VALIE
EXPORT, was turned into a concert stage. This made up the
theatrical setting. The musicians inside the glass cube did
neither use acoustic instruments nor loudspeakers; thus the
space remained silent. The audience, in its turn, stood outside
the cube, surrounded by the noise of the cars rushing by,
and listened to the electronic music via wireless headphones,
just as, by the way, the musicians themselves too. Thus all
participants shared the same acoustic experience yet were
separated from each other; the listeners were withdrawn from
a shared acoustic space of perception. As the ears were shielded
from the surrounding ambient noise by the headphones and didn’t
need to switch between many different sound sources as, for
example, in verbal communication, this resulted in a more
intensive listening experience. The consumers with their headphones
remained on their own acoustically, yet visually, they were
imbedded in a crowd that was sharing a common space.
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At the same time a DJ intervened with his sounds into the
real shared sound space from an apartment near the Gürtel
beltway. The visitors could switch between the two sets in
their headphones: staged concert versus staged reality. So,
due to the differently timed movements of the participants,
the dance floor was visually divided into two groups. By eliminating
the shared acoustic space the artist created an audiovisual
field of tension oscillating between performance, concert
and communication experiment. Thus it manifested another reflection
on staged events and the role of the visitors as participants
in an art event in the public space. At the same time this
artistic intervention was a major pop event that attracted
widespread media attention and was great entertainment for
the audience.
Daily programme:
18/05/05 Markus Kienzl live / DJ Muzikfranz
19/05/05 Colophony Circuit (Electric Indigo/Mia Zabelka) /
DJ Rainer Klang
20/05/05 DJ DSL/Sugar B.: pavement disco
For programme details and further information see: www.olliwood.com
Photos can be downloaded from this website
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