Oorwonde - a tactile experience

Laura Maes

The exposition focuses on Oorwonde, a specific practical experiment within the research project Sounding sound art. The work, which falls somewhere between a sound installation and an interactive performance, consists of specially constructed stainless steel operating table upon which visitors, or ‘patients’ are invited to undergo ‘aural surgery’. Next to the concept and construction of Oorwonde, related practices are discussed in terms of their use of subsonic sound in interactive works or installations. The exposition introduces contextual information in regard to the artist’s broader work on the question of what constitutes ‘sound art’, while it’s main purpose remains the description and analysis of this new sound work, as a piece of artistic research.

The range of human hearing extends from 20 to 20000 Hz. (Cutnell & Johnson, 1998) Many sound artists have tried to expand this range through exploring the borders of the audible, either above (ultrasonic) or below (subsonic) human audible range. Whilst we are not able to hear subsonic sounds, they can still form interesting artistic material as we can feel them and they can even be made visible.

- visualizing subsonic sound

- sensing subsonic sounds

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