Published on 8 September 2024, 18:53 / ©Kunsthaus Graz/JJ Kucek
The BIX façade of the Kunsthaus in Graz shows Fontana’s project “Silent Echoes: Dachstein” as a site-specific sound and light installation. A call for the protection of the world by humans.
The BIX façade of the Kunsthaus in Graz shows Fontana’s project “Silent Echoes: Dachstein” as a site-specific sound and light installation. A call for the protection of the world by humans.
From the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna to the Mariendom and the Ars Electronica in Linz as well as the BIX façade at the Graz Kunsthaus, Bill Fontana’s new work calls for climate change to be seen as a warning signal.
by Anja Mandler
2 minutes reading time (410 words)
On behalf of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024 The American sound artist creates Bill Fontana in the Parsifal Cathedral in the Dachstein Giant Ice Cave an incredible duet: the melting of the glacier and the bells of Notre-Dame. Fontana makes the bells audible through vibration sensors, transmits the sounds into the Dachstein Giant Ice Cave and combines them with the live sound of the melting glacier. This site-specific duet forms the basis for a “Sound Bridge“, which will be broadcast to exhibition venues worldwide. Also part of the networking project are the Kunsthaus Graz and the BIX media façade, which visually supports the sound experience on the forecourt of the Kunsthaus. It is “a strong statement on climate change and cultural fragility,” says curator Wolfgang Schlag about Bill Fontana’s Silent Echoes: Dachstein.
© Kunsthaus Graz/J.J. Kucek
American sound artist Bill Fontana gives climate change a voice and lets us hear the melting glacier.
Bill Fontana has been planning for years to give climate change a voice and listen to the melting glaciers around the world. Now, with the help of the latest technology and precise vibration sensors, he is not only making Austria’s highest mountain and its melting glacier audible, but is also combining it with the constant swinging of the bells of one of the world’s most famous churches, which have been silenced by a fire.
In harmony with nature
It is the third time that sound artist Bill Fontana has presented a work in Graz that calls for people to pause and listen to nature. As part of the 2020 Cultural Year, Bill Fontana presented a reenactment of his sound performance from 1988 and broadcast natural sounds from all over the world from the Schloßberg. In his solo exhibition Primal Energies, which was shown at the Kunsthaus Graz, a site-specific live installation was created that dealt with the acoustic and visual aesthetics of renewable energies. Another installation by Fontana can also be heard permanently in the courtyard of the Kunsthaus.
“It is the sound of something dying”
“Hearing the mountain and the glacier in their inner dynamic energy exchange is an experience that has changed me. Like the inaudible but ever-calling bells of Notre-Dame. There is something beautiful and tragic at the same time about experiencing the sounds and sights of this melting glacier up close,” says Fontana. His work combines images of the rushing ice melt that he captured on site with the sound of water seeping through the glacier, creating a meditative and poignant composition. “It is the sound of something dying,” says Fontana. These images will also be seen on the BIX façade.
About the artist
Bill Fontana (*1947, lives in San Francisco) has been using sound as a sculptural medium since the late 1960s. Since then he has created over 50 sound sculptures and 20 radio sculptures, some of them intercontinental. He has received a number of grants and awards, for example from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the DAAD, Berlin, and the Japan US Friendship Commission. His works have been installed in many museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, etc.
In Austria, Fontana became known through his live sound sculptures Sonic Projections from Schloßberg (Graz, 1988) and LANDSCAPE SOUNDINGS / KLANGLANDSCHFTEN (Vienna, 1990), which were realized in public urban spaces and on the radio, as well as through the CD LANDSCAPE SOUNDINGS / KLANGLANDSCHFTEN. In the summer of 1994, Bill Fontana installed the live sound sculpture SOUND IS-LAND at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and SIMULTANEOUS RESONANCES in Hall in Tirol.
A notice: This post was updated on 08.09.2024 at 18:55
