DET [OVER]HRTE1 AARHUS

- Tuning into the overheard magic of everyday life

By Marie Hjlund (aka. Marybell Katastrophy) & Morten Riis
Vision You sit in your kitchen, when suddenly the refrigerator seem to draw your listening attention to
its miniature clicking rhythms and the soft timbre of its humming drone, reminding you of an
old living room organ you are attuning to the ordinary sonic magic all around you, that you
normally tend to overhear.
[Listen Soundclip: Excerpt of song by Marie Hjlund where all instruments playing are everyday objects from a flat in Aarhus e.g.
the refrigerator is sampled and played as an organ]

We wish to invite the inhabitants of Region Midt to actively tune into their overheard
surroundings with us, and thus begin to rethink traditional distinctions between sound, music
and our environment.
This collective mission can only be accomplished, if we as composers do not try to exhaust
what the Sound of Aarhus is beforehand, and subsequently transform it into a musical
piece for an audience to passively perceive. Instead we want to invite everybody to become
composers with us, by opening our listening towards the overheard; its rhythms, timbres and
voices.
[Watch Videoclip: Excerpt of sound art installation by Morten Riis where sounds are used to generate pictures on old cathode ray
televisions]

Method

Attuning and Preparing

We start to notice something that normally tends to disappear into the sonic background
when it behaves differently than normal. Referring to John Cages method of placing objects
(called preparations) on or between the strings of a piano, as a way to expand and reveal
overheard expressions of the piano, we want to develop a method of attuning to the
overheard through preparing the city.
We can only help Aarhus to sound like itself, if it starts to listen to itself through an ongoing
act of attuning between the inexhaustible multitudes of different entities occupying the city.
We are not just referring to traditional instruments and humans, but also to how walls,
wireless network, and hand rails, can be tuned into, opening up new perspectives on our
sounding environment.
We believe that when our normal categories start to melt, we can simultaneously begin to
rethink our relationship with the environment in a broader ecological perspective. When the
boundaries between background and foreground, inside and outside, natural and unnatural
are questioned, we maybe start to realize that we are already connected to the forgotten or
overheard environment. This ecological awareness of intimate interconnectedness with
everything around us is increasingly necessary to face in a world of manmade climate
change.
This ecological awareness is necessary in a rapidly changing world, not only as a way to care
for long lost Nature, but for our everyday surroundings and neighbors2.

1 We use the Danish word overhre instead of the English overhear in the title, because can both mean to ignore
something you dont hear, but also to actively listen to something that was not meant for you in the first place.

2 We draw on philosopher Timothy Morton and his thoughts on ecological awareness as presented in e.g. his book
Ecology Without Nature (2007)

Realization Events
The opening event will take place at Rdhushallen at the center of Aarhus in the beginning
of 2017. The audience will take part in a guided sonic tour unraveling different preparation
techniques exploring the attuning of the site: Woodwinds playing the resonant frequencies of
the rooms, violin bows used to excite steel lamps and hand rails and percussionists
drumming pillars and waste bins. The tour ends at the main stage placed in the middle of
Rdhushallen, where live transmitted audio and video feeds will be projected on a large
screen displaying3:
Different sized choirs at different locations all tuning into the resonant frequencies of various
site-specific rooms.
Church bells excited with alternative playing techniques - violin bows, marbels, singing.
Foghorns prepared with hanging tubular bells that becomes excited by the air pressure of
the horn.
The TV antenna at Ssterhj performed and staged by special electronic circuits sonifying
the electromagnetic waves surrounding the place.
The voices of inhabitants we tend to overhear e.g. homeless, psychiatric patients, elders.
These audio and video feeds will be played live by us using specially designed software
which makes it possible to play these signals via MIDI keyboards 4, creating a compound of
mixed spatialities, sonorities and temporalities all connected through the concept of
attuning. Additionally this final section of the concert will also feature a large range of
transducers placed throughout Rdhushallen, tuning into and playing the different materials
the hall consists off.
Throughout 2017 similar events will take place at 3-4 other sites in Region Midt.
Everyday Interventions
During 2017 people are invited to engage in various interventions that proposes alternative
listening modes and ways of attuning to the overheard in our everyday surroundings:
Free app5 that invites you to use modern smartphones as objects that can strike our physical
world. By only using the vibrator in the phone we have the possibility to tune into coffee
cups, staircases, windows, and transform these objects into instruments and sound creators,
opening up a potentially infinite orchestra of things that are ready to fill the world with
acoustic vibrational music.
A specially designed electronic circuit that can be borrowed from the library and other public
places. Connecting your own set of headphones to the device lets you tune into the sound of
wireless networks occupying the airwaves, and making audible the hidden electromagnetic
signals filling the air around us6.

3 See attached diagram

4 Development of videosynth used in live concerts developed by Marybell Kastrophy see video from 4:00:
https://vimeo.com/16860080

5 This intervention will be a further development of the app VibraNode originally developed by Morten Riis in
collaboration with Redia for Danish Composer Societys 100 year anniversary 2013. For examples of this app please
see: https://vimeo.com/80876966 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emv_fspVebQ

6 For a short demonstration this alternative attuning concept please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=6DybQ9h_n8M

 DIY-recipes for making your own acoustic amplifiers, similar to a doctors stethoscope. The
listening devices make it possible to amplify our vibrational environment without electricity.
Link Collection
The ideas behind this project proposal are developed on the basis of our earlier work as
composers and sound artists. Therefore we have gathered a small collection of relevant links
that presents some of our earlier experiments in relation to the various methods described
in our proposal and a small list of other work:
Examples of projects where Marie Hjlund worked with engaging citizens and
their voices:
Over the course of two years the project Lys, Landskab og Stemmer7 (www.lysogstemmer.dk)
collected 758 different voices in East Jutland reading Inger Christensens poem Lys (Light)
aloud. The recordings was transformed into a 24 speaker outdoor composition presented in
six different sites, each six hours long, one for each site, unfolded over six evenings in 2011:
Video clip from one of the six evenings at Trehje:
https://vimeo.com/32379599]
Excerpt of the composition of voices:
https://soundcloud.com/marybell/excerpt-from-lys-landskab-og-stemmer
For a Marybell Katastrophy tour in Denmark local choirs were invited to sing on stage at the
local concert with the band.
Videoclip from Bruuns Galleri Aarhus with a student choir performing the song Elles Lys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY_1bp8nyaQ]
Examples of projects where Morten Riis has worked with developing and building
musical instruments based on alternative explorations of different materialities:
Piece for mechanical musical instrument driven by a steam engine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYwg7tWB_MU
Piece for old slide projectors, transducers, light and mirror ball:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzybYC5nqJM
Electro-mechanical instruments build in LEGO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmY2UF_v8NU

7 By Elle-Mie Ejdrup Hansen and Marie Hjlund commissioned by the Cultural Circle of East Jutland (Kulturring
stjylland)