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Nine Key Passage is an interactive sound installation created
for the New University Hospital in Akershus near Oslo.
The installation is located outdoors along the passage leading
to the main entrance.
It functions with nine infrared sensor/speaker-pairs mounted
into the ceiling of the passage. Passing the sensors activate
sound files which are played back from the ceiling speakers.
Each speaker is playing different chord and walking through
the whole transit creates a simple 9-tunes composition. When
there are many people walking to different directions the
arrangement gets more complex and endlessly changing.
The sound library is controlled by a computer. Every day during
one month it selects a new 9-chords set, from 31 combinations
in use, and the next month the library gets a new random order.
The sound bank is conceived and recorded by musicians/sound
engineers James Andean, Jimi Tenor, Mika Vainio and Kimmo
Oksanen together with Grönlund&Nisunen. Thereafter
the sound material was edited and re-organized and 31 x 9-chords
were selected by G&N to get used in the installation.
The selected sounds were recorded from various electronic
and processed acoustic instruments, a lot's of piano and analogue
synthesizer-sounds were included. James Andean picked up his
piano chords from Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy's scores.
All the sounds are reduced and focusing on the character of
the sound itself and its relation to the others.
Hospital is a very delicate place for a sound installation
with all its implications of life and death. We wanted people
to get curious and let them realize the nature of the piece
in a slow manner. A tiny feeling of inspiration that a little
fragment of a melody may leave was the core idea of the installation.
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