Dust

sound sculpture
Halle am Berghain, Berlin, 18 May-03 June 2018
curator: Carsten Seifarth
organiser: singuhr — projekte
sponsor: Hauptstadtkulturfonds

The installation »DUST« by Polish artist Katarzyna Krakowiak in the Halle am Berghain combines architecture, sound and light to create a situation. The monumental hall of the former co-generation power plant with its massive concrete architecture serves simultaneously as a backdrop and friction area for this site-specific installation.

»Dust is not dirt«, Krakowiak says. »Dust is a distortion. Dust is uncountable, it only steals shapes from other objects. It reproduces; it copies. Formally it belongs to the past, but I am interested in its temporary existence, a transitory shape in a temporary exhibition. (…) My work will adapt to the existing architecture, and will be a consequence of it.«

Krakowiak turns the entire building into a 24-channel sound structure. This sound structure is built with vocal sounds that are broken by the architecture. By using her own voice Krakowiak makes a female voice signature that is confronted with the brutalism of the Berghain architecture. This structure forms a temporary condensation of sounds, which settle on the architecture like dust. In her moving sound clusters, Krakowiak combines sound elements typical of this space by using a sound already existing in the building, that seems to be dripping through its walls with the new vocal signatures and thus opens new areas of perception for the visitors.

Photos: Roman März