The Speed of Sound, photo: Roman Maerz

The Speed of Sound is conceived for a former water reservoir in Prenzlauerberg, Berlin. The architectural construction consists of four large circular corridors of up 100 meters long. The acoustic properties, and corresponding propagation of sound in these rings forms the point of departure for the installation. In the work the acoustic sound in the space is being picked up, transformed, and played back into the space. The result is a dynamic environment of sonic oscillations that never repeats. Feedback, transformations, delays and changing spatial interconnections are part of a time-based process that forms the composition for the environment. The audience experiences the space reacting on, and building upon, itself. While being inside of it, the audience forms an intrinsic part of the space and directly influences the feedback process.

The four rings are equipped with a series of equally spaced dimmable light bulbes, each equipped with a corresponding light sensor. The created behavior of the light is similar to the principal of picking up and re-entering the sound in the space in the sense that the intensity of an individual light bulb depends on the measured intensity of the neighbouring light(s). It is the delay of the filament in the bulb warming up and cooling down that results in the time-based nature of the visual patterns moving through the rings.

In rest, the space is entirely dark. At the entrance the audience receives a torch to allow them to navigate the space. The light sensors not only pick up the light of the bulbs but also the light of the torches. By moving their torches, the audience creates waves of light moving through the light bulbs in the rings.

	The Audience Inside the Instrument Edwin van der Heide chapter in: Brandon Labelle and Cláudia Martinho (Eds.), Site of Sound #2: Of Architecture and the Ear, pp 283-288, Errant Bodies Press, Berlin, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9827439-0-4