Kontakte

In a fjord in northern Norway, a contact microphone placed against the artist’s vocal chords captures her voice before it becomes underwater sound. A hydrophone records human/animal interaction in the form of sound waves that can’t be heard at the surface. Julie Semoroz captures this nascent contact music, further elaborating it by virtue of the common ground she shares with scientists on the NCCR evolving language program. Stockhausen’s Kontakte is on the opposite end of the spectrum, culminating in explosions of sound and fury emitted by a three-pronged entity amplified by four rotating loudspeakers surrounding the audience for an immersive sonic roller-coaster.