Interweaving

An installative radio art performance for moving sound sources

What if a whole constellation of loudspeakers became a single instrument, and tuning it meant walking through the room?

Interweaving turns live radio emissions from celestial bodies into a playable space. Signals from pulsars, planetary and lunar echoes are fed in real time from a radio telescope in the Netherlands and placed as invisible, drifting sound sources throughout the performance space. Sine tones, rhythmic modulations and frequency-swept oscillations wander the room like comets around a star, never holding still.

Performers and audience members carry wireless loudspeakers built into custom enclosures shaped like deep-space probes and asteroids. The closer a carrier comes to a hidden source, the louder and clearer it grows, and resonance and modulation effects begin to emerge. Aligning these antennas to their transmissions collectively "tunes" the meta-instrument formed by the entire spatial constellation: a vibrant choreography of bodies tracking signals that keep moving.

With more loudspeakers available than performers, the piece hands itself over to its audience. It only comes alive when visitors step in to play it.

A collaboration with Tobias Leibetseder.