Early July at Germany’s Cologne Artothek (a space for young art) saw implementation of Sennheiser wireless technology for ‘Script’ – artist Juergen Staack’s latest art project dedicated to generating moments by language and sound.
The exhibition, which runs until 24 August, welcomes guests into a room with a blank canvass. As conversation ensues among the expectant audience, four ‘describers’ – each with a different native tongue (English, Russian, Japanese or Greek) – listen in on these conversations, relaying content to ‘writers’ using four Sennheiser SK 2000 pocket transmitters with four HSP headset microphones.
The ‘writers’ hear the information via four EK IEM monitor receivers with in-ear headphones and begin to transfer what they hear onto the canvass with invisible ink, eventually filling the once-blank canvass with the guests’ words, before the content slowly disappears to leave the exhibit as it started.
“In Script, the traditional relationship between observer and art is turned on its head: if anything, the canvas seems to perceive the observer,” explained Staack. “The ‘describers’ are the ‘eyes’ of the canvases, as it were; the canvases are like mirrors working with abstract words rather than direct reflection.”