Music Box Installation
Berlin North, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
2004

Curated by Gabriele Knapstein

Music Box Installation was a completely dark, and acoustically softened room about 5 x 5m in size and 2,5m in height, In the center of the room there was a sound proof cabinet with a glass top, The inner dimensions of the cabinet were 50 x 50 x 25cm in size, so it was infact a 1:10 scale model of the surrounding space. Inside the cabinet there was a simple mechanical music box fixed to a slowly rotating platform.

A small wheel connected to the music box was making its mechanism rotate by touching the firm surface next to the rotating platform. The music box was playing ''Internationale'', former Soviet national anthem, so slowly that the tune was barely recognisable. It actually sounded more like some weird out of tune childrens song.

Each corner of the cabinet had a tiny microphone which was connected to a speaker in the corresponding corner of the room. The rotation of the music box inside the cabinet changed the balance of the four speakers continually so that the music box sounded like rotating around the room.Some echo was also added to the sound to confuse the expectations the visitor had about the size of the room.

The idea of the piece was to study how space is experienced by its audible characteristics only, if no visual perception is available, The choice of the tune and old fashioned technique was aimed to create kind of melancholic and at the same time horrifying atmosphere to the space.