Verticality

! & ! MULTICHANNEL (Verticality)

Sound Sculpture, Multimedia Installation 2008-2010

As the first part of her architectural trilogy Anke Eckardt created a series of multimedia installations ‘!’ & ‘! MULTICHANNEL’.

In this project Anke Eckardt examines the relationship between spatial verticality and power. Precisely because vertical space is not part of man’s natural habitat, it seems well suited to being a space of the imagination, one strongly invested with symbolism. Bourdieu has pointed out that ‘the control of space is one of the most direct manifestations of power’ and that ‘thus the manipulation of the spatial arrangement of groups has always served the manipulation of the groups themselves’. Hence, not just flying and falling are imagined vertically, but also social and religious hierarchies, and falling bombs, which are an extreme demonstration of power.

HKW Berlin, video © VCAP117
The Hague, © AE

A loudspeaker at the ceiling (‘!’), and respectively a vertical line of loudspeakers (‘! MULTICHANNEL’) plays a downward sliding tone followed by a heavy sub-bass punch on the ground. The punch appears to trigger an eruption in a tank filled with black liquid. The liquid seems to erupt in the form of a round wave, which then disintegrates and splatters in all directions. A speckled, messy, black image thus spreads during the course of the exhibition over the initially clean, white floor.

What compromises do we make when we interpret the world in light of the ambiguous information we receive from our senses? In this instance, owing to the temporal and spatial conjunction of two independent events – the ‘falling sound’ and the visual impact that immediately ensues – we interpret the scene as one of cause and effect. We seek consistency in the world that we perceive and tend therefore to reduce it to a fragment that appears coherent with our experience of life.

‘! Multichannel’ was exhibited at, among other places, City Hall of The Hague, presented by the TodaysArt-Festival (2010); the Dominikanerkirche Osnabrück, presented by the European Media Art Festival (2012). The installation ‘!’ was awarded the prize of the Artist-in-Residence Grant from the Saxon State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Fine Arts 2011, realized in cooperation with the City of Dresden and co-funded by ‘Culture Programme’ (2007–2013) within the framework of the collaborative European project ‘E.C.A.S – Networking Tomorrow’s Art For An Unknown Future’.

Photos: Anke Eckardt, Ed Jansen, Holger Kist