Traffic
A silent video installation about sound [2010]
In winter 2009 I went to Hanoi to capture field recordings for a composition entitled 'Intersection'. I also took a lot of photos in and around Hanoi. These photos illustrate the hectic noise of the daily city life, but there are also long time exposures taken at night, shots taken in nature or details, that tell a different story; a more introverted, more quiet Vietnam.
The sounds recorded in Hanoi very much match what the images suggest: Traffic noises, cars, trains, motor cycles, bicycles, church bells, construction sites, electrical hum, but also more distant steady states, drones, sounds that slowly transform over time.
'Traffic' tells about theses sounds. Three video displays show slowly fading and overlapping images. The fading is more a complex keying, parts of the images appear and disapper at different times, depending on their color and brightness, resulting in strange contradictionary dream-like overlays.
The sequence of images is not fixed but is based on probabilities, and the software for creating that sequence runs independently for each display. As a result, the installation never repeats, and each moment offers a new and unseen combination of elements.
'Traffic' has been exhibited from July 18th 2010 till August 29 2010 as part of the group exhibition 'Klang im Namen des Raumes', Strausberger Platz, Berlin
The image processing software I wrote for Traffic and the visual aesthetic of dismantled TFT displays later became the basis for the installation Transition Machine, exhibited in 2011 at Fargfabriken, Stockholm.
