A World of Sound / Sonic Vista Stavanger, Norway / april 2008 - jan 2009
A commission to create 10 of our world-famous Sonic Vista benches as one of the cornerstones of the year long 'A World of Sound' programme of experimental music for Stavanger 2008, which is the joint European City of Culture this year. Curated by NuMusic, the project involves placing benches at 10 locations both in and surrounding the city of Stavanger. Each bench contains a specially commissioned piece of music designed to complement the view, and includes the official Karlheinz Stockhausen memorial bench which will live permanently on the roof of Touscene, a dynamic new cultural centre based in the defunct Tou brewery building.
It made sense to have the benches manufactured in Norway (Norwegian Wood), and we were fortunate to find a perfect partner in local Stavanger firm RANSO which employs a local workforce with varying degrees of disability in the production of various 'municipal' wooden products. Having assessed their fabrication capabilities, we designed a bench (cardboard prototype above) which would both have the look of NuMusic (angular, modern and bold) and which RANSO could make...
The finished benches undergoing electronic transplant...
Bench*5 installed overlooking the fjords in the shadow of the massive radio transmitter at Ullandhaug tower/ soundtrack >Nils Henrik Asheim
Bench*2 on the edge of the fjord at Vaulen beach / soundtrack > Kim Cascone
Plug in and the audio starts. Send an SMS to the number on the black tag for more information
A credit card sized fold-out map shows all locations and information on all composers in norwegian and english
Numusic's Stein Bjelland (wearing official Sonic Vista merchandise!) on the day of the launch / soundtrack > Hai Nguyen Dinh

© opensq 2008