1988
Sound Line, 1988
Sound Work Location: CNAC, Magasin, Grenoble, France. Dimensions: 2 x 60 x 18 meters
Extant: February 28 – April 10, 1988
Sound Work Location: CNAC, Magasin, Grenoble, France. Dimensions: 2 x 60 x 18 meters
Extant: February 28 – April 10, 1988
Image: Max Neuhaus Working Drawings
Eight of the working drawings Neuhaus used to analyze reflections and find the positions of the sound sources for 'Sound Line'.
Drawing: Magazin General- 1st Try, Sound Line, 1987, Colored pencil on paper - 30x42 cm
Collection: The Estate of Max Neuhaus
Crédit photographique : Blaise Adilon
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The work in Grenoble, like many of Max Neuhaus' sound installations, is a static aural topography, made to be heard and interpreted individually by listeners as they move through it. (Another type of work based on moving sound images will not be discussed here.) As a visitor enters the main hall and advances into the middle of the space, when he gets to the second pillar he suddenly hears a sort of lapping sound which may remind him of a stream of water - or is it rain on the glass roof? The right direction, in fact, for the sound indubitably comes from the roof. When he moves a few metres to the right or left, the sound disappears and he can't help becoming aware of the air-conditioning. If he listens more carefully to the lapping sound, it becomes clear there is nothing natural about it at all. It is perhaps possible to recognize that it is an electronically-generated, shimmering sound image which clearly follows a constant ascending movement. Moving lengthways through the space, the sound can be localized quite precisely along its axis. Its intensity increases near the middle of this axis and diminishes again as one moves into the distance. However, it is never loud. If it is raining on the glass roof, the sound is almost inaudible.
In a way, Max Neuhaus is repeating with aural means what Richard Long showed before him visually with 30 tons of anthracite: a line 2 metres wide and 60 metres long lengthways in space. Nevertheless, the two pieces were conceived independently of each other. In fact, Neuhaus' work had been finished before that of Richard Long. All sound-generating facilities and the computer programs were invisibly installed during Long's show, just waiting to being switched on. This axis is quite simply the most obvious line in the space. Neuhaus, however, does not limit himself to that. He includes the whole space in his work. One's perception wavers between the image for the eye and the sound image for the ear.
What Neuhaus adds to this environment can perhaps be compared to Carl Andr's sheets of steel. It can often hardly be noticed at first; you have to listen. However, once you are aware of his addition, all sound present can only be heard in relation to it. For instance noises like the air-conditioning or the traffic outside, which you don't normally hear because they are too monotonous, play a new role as components of the physical fact of being there in that precise space, the place in question. To describe such a work of art by just the added sound image would be in no way exhaustive; the work transforms the place and all that is visible and audible into a new entity.