S P E C U L U M  S P E C U L I

Commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur Composed & broadcast 2009 © 50 min

A 30-minute version of this work entitled Déjà Vu is part of Kirkegaard's cassette release on POSH ISOLATION © 2015

At Deutschlandradio Kirkegaard turned on the microphones and speakers in eight empty broadcasting studios and connected them to create a circular chain reaction: Studio 1 broadcast its own ambient sound into Studio 2. Studio 2 picked up the broadcast of the ambient sound of Studio 1 along with its own ambient sound and broadcast this into Studio 3. Then Studio 3 broadcast the ambient sound of Studio 1, 2 and 3 into Studio 4… and so forth, until the eight gathered broadcasts of the ambient sound of all eight studios were ultimately broadcast back into Studio 1. From a separate radio studio, Kirkegaard could control the amplitude and equalization of the feedback broadcast of each one of the eight empty radio studios

Broadcast studios are perhaps the most neutral and discrete of all sites of production. They seem to come to life only when something is being recorded (or emitted). But what happens if one tried to awaken the sounds that can be produced by the studios themselves - by connecting silence to silence, emptiness to emptiness, and letting them activate each other?

At Deutschlandradio Kultur in Berlin, Jacob Kirkegaard turned on the microphones and speakers in eight empty broadcasting studios and connected them in such a way as to create a circular chain reaction: Studio 1 broadcasted its own ambient sound into Studio 2. Studio 2 picked up the ambient sound of 1 along with its own ambient sound and broadcasted this into Studio 3. Then Studio 3 broadcasted the ambient sound of 1, 2 and 3 into Studio 4… and so forth, until the mixed ambient sound of all 8 studios were broadcasted back into Studio 1. This process set all studios into a kind of controlled feedback. From a separate room, Kirkegaard could control the amplitude and equalization of the broadcast of each one of the empty studios.

The resulting work consists of five different pieces that are separated by short interludes from an outside space.

SPECULUM SPECULI was created on commission by Marcus Gammel for the "Klangkunst" program at Deutschlandradio Kultur.

SPECULUM SPECULI is dedicated to
Else Marie Pade