Silent Echoes: Dachstein

A sound installation between Notre Dame Cathedral and the ice caves on the Dachstein.

The US artist Bill Fontana is developing a sound sculpture as an artistic statement on the consequences of climate change.

Subject to change
Bill Fontana mit Glocke
© Luca Bagnoli
Contributors

Bill Fontana (Artists)
Wolfgang Schlag (Curator)
Peter Brugger (Co-Curator and Programme Manager Goiserer Musiktage)
Norbert Trawöger (Upper Austrian CulturalEXPO Anton Bruckner 2024)
in cooperation with: IRCAM, Centre Pompidou, Upper Austrian KulturEXPO Anton Bruckner 2024, Ars Electronica Festival, Goiserer Musiktage, Kunstradio Ö1.
Thanks to: OÖ Seilbahnholding GmbH, Planai-Hochwurzen Bahnen GmbH

Christian Haselmayr (Programmleitung Musik, Jugend, Community Building)

When
From 4 September 2024 until end of season

About the project

In 2019, Notre-Dame, the “soul of Paris”, landmark of European culture, will burn. The bells are spared, but fall silent for years. Silently they “listen” to the hustle and bustle of the city and the sounds of the construction site. The US sound artist Bill Fontana makes this harmonic response of the bells audible through vibration sensors, transmits the sounds into the ice caves on the Dachstein and mirrors them as if in a duet with the sounds of the melting glacier, an impressive artistic statement on climate change and the fragility of culture. This site specific duet will be the basis of a ‚Sound Bridge‘ that will be sent to other exhibition sites in Europe and beyond.

The Parzival Dome in the ice caves of the Dachstein is a place that holds an inestimable secret, as it is called in Anton Bruckner’s composition Locus iste: a secret that asks us humans the question of how we want to live with nature in the future. In addition, the Upper Austrian KulturEXPO Anton Bruckner 2024, in cooperation with the Goiserer Musiktage, will award a composition commission to young composers on this theme. The work will be premiered as part of the European Capital of Culture 2024 at the Goiserer Musiktage on the glass fountain in the ice cave.