Lisa Premke

O Miradouro Auditivo

At Binaural Nodar, my initial plan was to build an aural lookout; a construct that emphasises the soundscape of the area instead of the visual. As I was looking at photos of the area, I remembered many holidays, standing on the top of a mountain, on a lookout platform, seizing the impressions of the landscape. Though the sound was of course always part of it, these platforms are not made to tune into the different sonic experiences. At the same time, camping out in the open, one always thinks of the quietness and calmness of nature until entering a sound diaphanous space, such as a tent. Suddenly, still being wide in the open, the sounds get amplified, only because the visuals can rest and can’t use far sightedness anymore. Even in bright daylight, the senses swap their importance; I cannot see, therefore I listen.

In the beginning of the residency it felt as if we were on an expedition: being introduced to the villages, getting out to inspect and search for materials and coming home in the evening wondering how to bundle the impressions.The locals, their daily habits and the village structures seemed at tuned to the landscape. For me, this practical uniformity together with the remoteness of the location initially almost opposed any interference.

But after getting to know the area and becoming acquainted with some of there maining elderly inhabitants, I started to see differentlayers and came to know that in almost every small community there once were cheerful events. Though the only remaining evidence were the architectural left overs, the empty stages and decayed gazebos of the villages centre. When I spoke to the villagers, they told me about the past, the singing and dancing that in their memory used to beadaily habit and an important part of their life. It was interesting to see how the architecture had survived, but the vivid experiences seemed to decay together villages and the villagers, each isolated from the other.

I asked several of the elderly locals from different villages to sing for me individually and reluctantly they started to sing with fragile and unexercised voices, remembering the folk songs of the area. Being invited to different houses and peoples hyly singing or reciting poetry for me, was a vey honest and humbling experience because it seemed to be something they could not identify with anymore when I addressed the matfirst. Over the years they each forgot some of the lyrics, so they sang or hummed what they could remember. I composed a choir out of these separate recordings and united the bits and pieces into one song.

At the same time, I was searching for a place for my lookout, exploring the architecture of the area to see what shape it could take.There is a certain confrontation with the pragmatic daily lifestyle and the almost excessive amount of chapels and churches, which were one of the only places I heard music in, too. For me, the practical and simplistic structures of the water supply wells not only were an embodiment of these daily routines, but they could also emulate naturally the holiness of churches, because of the water carrying the sound and trapping the reverberation.

The aural lookout is standing on top of such a flat-roofed well house, filled with water for the region, over seeing some of the villages. It is a construction out of canvas that separates it self from but doesn’t exclude the hilly surroundings. I wanted to blend in with the simplistic functionality and change its purpose at the same time. The choir piece is played below, using speakers inside the well house. Walking inside the aural lookout, the visitors hear the choir as well as their own steps and vibrations through headphones that are connected to microphones inside the well house, recording the direct sound from the speakers and there verb.

At Binaural Nodar I worked with voice for the first time and found a dialogue between architecture, landscape and the inhabitants. The small group of artists and the local assistance was very motivational and encouraging to work side-specific. Initially I was not very interested inusing human sounds in my work, and I am very pleased that my piece developed during the short period as it was a starting point for further investigating voice in relation to architecture.

Lisa Premke (*1981, Germany) studied first architecture and later Fine Arts at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Already in her studies she started to work with correlating architecture and sound and deepened this interested during her Masters of Sound at the Glasgow School of Arts. Her large-scale architectonic sound installations often link to the site, visually as well as audibly. Since a few years Lisa works as well for film and audio plays and organises exhibitions and artists residencies in unusual places. Lisa lives and works in Berlin, Germany.