Mouse on Mars take over the Kunstbau of Lenbachhaus in Munich, Germany with a sound installation for which they developed a site-specific composition. Working with and responding to the exhibition space, the installation transforms the Kunstbau itself into a gigantic stereophonic acoustic instrument.

A rotatable horn loudspeaker pitchforks a sound like a pinball into the 110-yard Kunstbau, where it rebounds on the pillars, cants, splinters, is gathered back in, and dies down. One by one, additional sounds from a virtually inexhaustible repertoire are sent out into the space and modulated. Percussive devices operated by robots interject analog acoustic accents.

Sequences of different lengths are continuously rearranged so that no two of them recur in the same order. The audience experiences the orchestrated unfolding of a dynamic composition in three dimensions. The space and the sounds generated from it clash and respond to each other, resulting in an acoustic dialogue. A dedicated illumination program is coordinated with the music, seconding the sonic movements and sometimes standing in for them.

The installation intends to challenge the audience to active listening, in which only the limits of attention determine the limits of what is acoustically possible. With targeted shifts of perspective, Mouse on Mars propose to demonstrate their conviction that there is no one valid composition: each listener produces his or her own “spatial compostruction.”

Mouse on Mars have continually evolved their practice for twenty-five years, always asking new questions. The “compostruction” is part of their most recent acoustic research, inquiring both into the movement of sounds through time and space and aspects of psychoacoustic perception and the experience of sound: How can we define hearing and listening? How do we process acoustic information? How do our bodies respond to the physical movements of sound in space? How attentively can we observe the process of hearing itself? And in which other ways do we relate to our acoustic environment?

Spatial Jitter April 9, 2022 – September 18, 2022
Lenbachhaus Munich curated by Eva Huttenlauch
Spatial Jitter April 9, 2022 – September 18, 2022
Lenbachhaus Munich curated by Eva Huttenlauch
Composition and Production: Andi Toma & Jan St. Werner
Speaker Panels: Michael Akstaller
Rotating Speaker: Andi Toma, Jan St. Werner, Matthias Singer
Percussion Robots: Moritz Simon Geist
Lights: Matthias Singer
Sound Software: Marcin Pietruszewski, Dietrich Pank
Percussion: Dirk Rothbrust
Woodblocks: Boris Müller
Art Direction: Rupert Smyth

LP & publication with contributions by Louis Chude-Sokei, Helga de la Motte-Haber, Eva Huttenlauch, Mouse on Mars, Patricia Reed, Susanne Witzgall via www.lenbachhaus.de/en/visit/exhibitions/details/mouse-on-mars Price: 29,90€