RITSCH: GESANG DER ORGEL (Installation)

Gesang der Orgel (the song of the organ) is a traversable sound installation for 222 modulable organ pipes and one singer. Wood, metal and pipe registers from a Hradetzky church organ are spread around the rooms of the Reaktor. They become an acoustic set design and a robotic room sculpture. Each individual pipe can be controlled by a computer network in terms of volume and airflow, but also by fine tuning. Since most of the pipes can be tuned by a semitone via computer and their sound can also be changed, new quasi-register colours and an infinite number of (mis)tunings are possible. The acoustic and musical repertoire of this installation spans from glissandi of various sizes and manipulated tones and clusters to short speech-like phrases. These malleable tunings enable a ‘harmonic unison’ of overtones, where different wave sounds and rhythms only appear to be repeating themselves. Additionally, custom-built organ pipes are dipped in water containers robotically and transformed into glissandi pipes which can play barely audible glissandi as well as quick jumps in tone. The sound installation will be inaugurated live with the singer Lissie Rettenwander. Here, human and machine will become so connected that the computer organ will imitate human singing and vary and repeat this in loops during the following days. Instead of a keyboard, the voice and the microphones become the organ’s interface. The algorithmically generated composition of the installation is non-repetitive and can play on indefinitely. The sound experience ends with another vocal performance at the finissage. (Lissie Rettenwander, Winfried Ritsch)