04.10.2015 in the frame of
RAUMMUSIK und so – ROAR
nxnwfestival / Sound & Unsound
Ebertplatz/ Köln
15 minutes

As a child, I used to imitate traffic-noises with my voice while playing. When I once recorded myself with a cassette-recorder, I was disappointed. It sounded much better in my head – and more similar. Listening was an inward experience, playing was a show for myself.
The Performance Platzgesang was about recognizability and abstraction. I listened to a field-recording of the traffic-noise at Ebertplatz in Cologne via headphones. While listening, I imitated these sounds with my voice, reproducing them. In order to do so, I used a microphone, an echo effect and a portable speaker. The performance started right at the place where the traffic-noise was recorded. Then, listening and sounding, I walked across the square. My body became a filter, which was only partially able to reproduce the sounds that I heard. Some significant sounds, such as the ones of approaching cars or those of a siren for example, were recognizable to the audience, whereas others were not. Instead, they produced an abstract sonic image.

With the kind support of ON – Neue Musik Köln and Klanglabor der Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln.