Christina Kubisch
Event
Christina Kubisch is one of today's most celebrated sound artists. After studying painting, flute, piano, musical composition and electronic music, she began, in the 1970s, to work with sound sculptures, installations and electroacoustic compositions that would establish her as a trailblazer artist in the field of Sound Art.
In the late 1970s, Christina Kubisch began using the technique of electromagnetic induction in her installations, a device that allows the transmission of sounds between electrical cables and headphones with magnetic coils specially designed by the artist. This system, which Kubisch has been constantly improving both technically and artistically, has been the starting point for numerous sound installations carried out around the world since 1980. It brings together and intersects various aspects of Kubisch's work: a revelation and awareness of the flow of energy and sound that, in an age dominated by technology that surrounds us anytime, anywhere; the proposal of an aesthetic dimension to the sounds transported by electricity and electromagnetism, in compositions that are constituted either by the artist's choices or by the movement of the public, conscious and self-determined; the underlining of our condition as beings connected by much more than what is on the surface, namely by what is invisible and silent.
The installation THE GREENHOUSE, 2017 (with a new version for Serralves in 2021), is an example of Kubisch's works that use electromagnetic induction. The public, equipped with headphones, is given access to the soundscape that emerges from the approximately 1,500 meters of suspended cables in the Museum's Contemporary Gallery. When moving in the space, the public will be able to mix the series of natural and electromagnetic sounds that circulate in them.
Also in BRUNNENLIEDER [FOUNTAIN SONGS], 2009, natural sounds are fused - either from the Serralves Park where it is installed or from recordings - with musical quotations from vinyl records of Schubert's song “Ein Brunnen vor dem Tore”, (based on a traditional song with the same name), gathered under the sign and sound plasticity of water.
SILENCE PROJECT, 2011 – ongoing, focuses on a line of research and artistic practice by Kubisch that addresses the material, conceptual and cultural questions of silence. Based on a collection of recordings of the words that mean “silence” in about seventy languages, the project is divided into two works: one made from the images of sonograms of these words (“Analyzing Silence”, 2011 – ongoing), and another (“Silent Exercises”, 2011 - ) includes a silent video projection where these images merge and a sound installation based on the spatialization of a composition of the recordings of words, which will impose itself on the silence in the tower of the Chapel of the Serralves Villa.
In 2010, Christina Kubisch presented a version for the centre of Porto of her well-known “Electrical Walks”, as part of the Trama performing arts festival. Now in 2021, Kubisch will have her first exhibition in Portuguese territory, constituting an opportunity for a closer relationship with this fundamental artist and historical figure in contemporary music and art.
In the late 1970s, Christina Kubisch began using the technique of electromagnetic induction in her installations, a device that allows the transmission of sounds between electrical cables and headphones with magnetic coils specially designed by the artist. This system, which Kubisch has been constantly improving both technically and artistically, has been the starting point for numerous sound installations carried out around the world since 1980. It brings together and intersects various aspects of Kubisch's work: a revelation and awareness of the flow of energy and sound that, in an age dominated by technology that surrounds us anytime, anywhere; the proposal of an aesthetic dimension to the sounds transported by electricity and electromagnetism, in compositions that are constituted either by the artist's choices or by the movement of the public, conscious and self-determined; the underlining of our condition as beings connected by much more than what is on the surface, namely by what is invisible and silent.
The installation THE GREENHOUSE, 2017 (with a new version for Serralves in 2021), is an example of Kubisch's works that use electromagnetic induction. The public, equipped with headphones, is given access to the soundscape that emerges from the approximately 1,500 meters of suspended cables in the Museum's Contemporary Gallery. When moving in the space, the public will be able to mix the series of natural and electromagnetic sounds that circulate in them.
Also in BRUNNENLIEDER [FOUNTAIN SONGS], 2009, natural sounds are fused - either from the Serralves Park where it is installed or from recordings - with musical quotations from vinyl records of Schubert's song “Ein Brunnen vor dem Tore”, (based on a traditional song with the same name), gathered under the sign and sound plasticity of water.
SILENCE PROJECT, 2011 – ongoing, focuses on a line of research and artistic practice by Kubisch that addresses the material, conceptual and cultural questions of silence. Based on a collection of recordings of the words that mean “silence” in about seventy languages, the project is divided into two works: one made from the images of sonograms of these words (“Analyzing Silence”, 2011 – ongoing), and another (“Silent Exercises”, 2011 - ) includes a silent video projection where these images merge and a sound installation based on the spatialization of a composition of the recordings of words, which will impose itself on the silence in the tower of the Chapel of the Serralves Villa.
In 2010, Christina Kubisch presented a version for the centre of Porto of her well-known “Electrical Walks”, as part of the Trama performing arts festival. Now in 2021, Kubisch will have her first exhibition in Portuguese territory, constituting an opportunity for a closer relationship with this fundamental artist and historical figure in contemporary music and art.
