Floating Beam Christoph De Boeck 2017

A salt vapour washes over a supporting beam made of brushed steel that hovers in mid-air. It emits a constant percussive sound composed of hundreds of so-called acoustic emissions. A sensor is capturing these emissions caused by the corrosion process in this 20th century construction icon. The inaudible, ultra-acoustic waveforms are registered with an oscilloscope and consequently they are played back with a lower audio sample rate.

Listening to the internal activity of solid structures reveals the transformatory nature of infrastructure, a metastability, a world in distress. Every new acoustic emission is concatenated to the audioloop: an initial loop of one or two crack sounds is extended with each new event so that multiple micro-melodies arise. It becomes the song of a monolith animated with the sound of its own demise.

Co-produced by Overtoon, Netwerk Center for Contemporary Art and Bozar Brussels
In collaboration with Dr. Helge Pfeiffer, Johan Vanhulst and Michael Stamm from
Department of Metals and Materials Engineering of KU Leuven (MTM)

Productions by Christoph De Boeck

Language I
Staalhemel
Time Code Matter
Responses
Black Box
Golfvorm
Hortus Sonoris
Floating Beam
Hortus
Murmurs
Punctuation #2
Surfaces
Punctuation #1
Cell
Plant Condition