Videos of „fünftausend bimmeln“ – Soundart by Martin Hiller
fünftausend bimmeln is an audio-installation by Martin Hiller for three guitars and 5000 tiny bells.
Three guitars are played by 5000 tiny bells dropping down onto their strings from asynchronously rotating containers.
fünftausend bimmeln was shown at the public art space „Cubic“ in Greifswald from June 08th – 21st, 2019. During the 14 days, the installation continuously generated music.
Videos of fünftausend bimmeln by Martin Hiller
Three videos now show the audio-installation in action from multiple views – inside and outside.
About fünftausend bimmeln
As an audio-installation, fünftausend bimmeln constantly generates a slow and decelerated, aleatory sequenced music. The resulting music is a cluster of meditative, jingle-jangly sounds.
When and where the bells will fall on the guitars is variable. The intensity, pitch, and duration of the tones and their overtones differ with each falling bell.
During two weeks in June 2019, the installation of fünftausend bimmeln was shown at the public art space „Cubic“ in Greifswald. Controlled by time clocks, the audio-installation continuously generated automatic music in segments of 15 minutes.
The guitar tunings were changed every few days. A selection of 30 recordings, with a length of 15 minutes each, was released as „fünftausend bimmeln – collected recordings“ – durating nearly 8 hours in total.
Flutterbies, Droops, Oscillations, Mantra Marien
Similar to Martin Hiller’s other soundworks Droops, Oscillations, Mantra Marien and Flutterbies, the installation of fünftausend bimmeln makes use of kinetic and electro-mechanical techniques to bring guitars to sound.
With the principles of randomness and aleatoricism, these audio-installations are concrete realizations of how Martin Hiller understands music. In accompanying notes on another conceptual project – his album „Mother Sun Cheese“ – he outlines his love for music as happening sounds:
„To me, music has always been something that happens. I love long-form music and music where the next aural events cannot necessarily be recognized by the parameters or inner logic that the music provides. I like that music, whose flow and stream of sonic elements and auditory information could always turn or bend somewhere – but then, often just doesn‘t do because it is – as a happening maelstrom of sounds – constantly fanning out and unfolding in its streaming and strumming. The flowing is already the bending here.
This love to the magic of the nature of chance, and the principles of aleatoricism, yet also the joy for buzzing and droning sounds and atmospheres has always been part of, or maybe is the actual mode of my musical activity for a long time now.“
(Martin Hiller in a note on „Mother Sun Cheese“)