Empty Spaces

Sound installation installed in a room with four speakers hanging from the ceiling and a hammock hanging in the middle, lights turned down. The sound works lasts for 15 minutes on a loop. Shown at Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art in 2019.

This sound installation started out as a search for an understanding of silence, knowing about artists previous attempt and success to capture and exhibit their finds such as John Cage. I was allowed to record sound in cultural buildings in Tromsø early in the morning or at night when there were no people there. And I Thought that the absence of people would make an interesting perspective to the sound recordings, from Polarmuseum, Tromsø Folkmuseum and the central cathedral. As I was wandering from room to room and into big halls I was thinking about silence, what we perceive as silence and how to experience it. As silence would be the absence of sound, how can we experience it with our presence. And further on I thought that silence would be very similar to air, it is always present everywhere and if you stir or make a noise it is changing. Does it always have to be silence for sound to appear and could this sense and element share their own dimension.

After realizing that the philosophical and technical aspect of the field recordings took different directions I went on to focus on the little disturbances of these empty room experiences, as it became clear that outside noise and electrical humming were making their presence known. I chose to focus on the electromagnetic recordings in the soundworks and put in pauses to let you listen to the silence yourself. As you came into the room there was a hammock to sit in and being in a carried in the air was a way to lift you closer to the empty space experience.  

Liliana Borge 2019

Empty Spaces video docoumentation of the work and soundwork