S P E C U L U M  S P E C U L I

Commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur © 2009. Broadcast date Dec 4th, 2009

SPECULUM SPECULI is an experiment that operates at the very core of radio broadcasting: Working with precision-ground magnifiers and mirrors, sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard dissects the ostentive silence and passivity of empty broadcasting studios. Through amplification and feedback processes, he reveals the hidden life breath of spaces that are usually thought of as "acoustically dead" and inactive.

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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