the range of outside factors influencing it, as well as its own radius of action

The title is drawn from Hans Haacke’s Untitled Statement (1969)

A “sculpture” that physically reacts to its environment and/or affects its surroundings is no longer to be regarded as an object. The range of outside factors influencing it, as well as its own radius of action, reach beyond the space it materially occupies. It thus merges with the environment in a relationship that is better understood as a “system” of interdependent processes. These processes-transfers of energy, matter or information evolve without the viewer’s empathy. In works conceived for audience participation the viewer might be the source of energy, or his mere presence might be required. There are also “sculpture” systems which function when there is no viewer at all. In neither case, however, has the viewer’s emotional, perceptual or intellectual response any influence on the system’s behaviour. Such independence does not permit him to assume his traditional role of being the master of the sculpture’s programme (meaning), rather the viewer now becomes a witness. A system is not imagined; it is real.

The piece takes a source recording of a space and plays it back into a different space. Sounds from both the recording and the performance space are reinforced by performers. The performance is recorded, and the recording becomes the source for future realisations.

the range of outside factors influencing it, as well as its own radius of action was written for The New Silence.

the range of outside factors influencing it, as well as its own radius of action