SCAFFOLD EYES
PERFORMANCE & INSTALLATION
Spoken word, binaural sound, semi-translucent curtains, video projection, approx. 43 Minutes.
Spoken by Doireann O'Malley, Miriam Stoney and Armin Lorenz Gerold.
Scaffold Eyes is an audio play that was first shown in a performance and installation at KW Berlin, in the context of Compound. Compound was a series of new productions by artists that have been invited by Willem de Rooij. These commissions resulted in different forms of presentation spanning the time period of three months, varying from performances, and screenings to short-term exhibitions. With works by Eric Bell & Kristoffer Frick, Richard Frater, Armin Lorenz Gerold, Keto Logua, Josef Tarrak Petrusson, and Mavis Tetteh-Ocloo
Armin Lorenz Gerold: Scaffold Eyes
2 November 2017, 7pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.
Performance invitation flyer, 2017
A second iteration of the performance was live broadcasted from Between Bridges in Berlin as part of the Berlin Programme for Artists exhibition, curated by Maurin Dietrich.
Armin Lorenz Gerold: Scaffold Eyes
7 March 2018, 9pm
live stream
In 2019, Scaffold Eyes was released as a limited edition CD by London based label The Wormhole, including original drawings by the artist.
Armin Lorenz Gerold: Scaffold Eyes
limited edition CD, London: The Wormhole
March 2019
Scaffold Eyes, limited edition CD, The Wormhole, 2019 (Photo: Dan Ipp)
Text
For the series Compound, Austrian artist Armin Lorenz Gerold presents a format between installation, performance, and radio play. Scaffold Eyes consists of two spatially separated areas, which are created by the installing of a semi-translucent canvas into the middle of the gallery space. Behind the screen, two voice actors read the play, which together with pre-recorded and live sounds create a backdrop, tracing the play's protagonists movements through Berlins urban space.
Voices, sounds, and musical elements navigate the visitors, exploring the interweaving of analogue and virtual spaces, and identities.
Credits
Scaffold Eyes
Text, sound and recordings by Armin Lorenz Gerold.
Read by Armin Lorenz Gerold, Doireann O'Malley and Miriam Stoney.
Text translations and copy editing by Jennifer Hope Davy.
Videos by Armin Lorenz Gerold.
Documentation: Frank Sperling (KW), Dan Ipp (Reproductions)
ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES
PERFORMANCE & INSTALLATION
Spoken word, sound, video, booklet, approx. 46 Minutes.
Spoken by Armin Lorenz Gerold and Mathea Hoffmann.
Atmospheric Disturbances is an audio play, initially written for an exhibition at Pristina’s LambdaLambdaLambda where it was shown in a stereo sound installation along side a text booklet.
Armin Lorenz Gerold: Atmospheric Disturbances
17 November–22 December 2018
LambdaLambdaLambda, Pristina
curated by Cathrin Mayer and Maurin Dietrich.
For a performance in 2019 at Centro Botín in Santander as part of The Acoustic Form, curated by fluent, it was extended through animations and live drawings for a live performance.
The Acoustic Form
Nuno da Luz, Agnes Pé, Armin Lorenz Gerold
19–20 April 2019
Centro Botín, Santander, Spain
Curated by Alex Alonso Díaz of fluent.
Text
but there was something like abandon in the air there was something like the feeling of the idea of silk scarves in the air there was a kind of madness to it.
Robert Ashley, Private Parts
For an exhibition at LambdaLambdaLambda, artist Armin Lorenz Gerold presents a format that finds itself between installation and audio play. Specifically conceived for the gallery space, the narration revolves around two protagonists and their mutual constellation – strung together perhaps as siblings, as accomplices or per chance.
Short dialogue scenes foreshadow a rapprochement. Extended spoken passages give form to the characters through descriptions of their movements and the changing light and weather. They occur as acoustic images that allow for the contours of the characters to slowly emerge in front of a landscape-evoking backdrop. Gerold’s immersive, works of sound and voices consciously move between fore- and background. Like in the story that gives a close account of the protagonists journeys of encounters in urban spaces and nature the visitor departs on her/ his their own venture, as the hazy playback transcends the gallery into a place of almost immaterial, mental experience.
Experimental composer Robert Ashley once spoke about involuntary speech, and the idea of composing music that like „automatic writing“ comes from the mental unconscious. He describes the idea of a new form of musical storytelling - an opera of some kind. Similar in Gerold's work the words are not necessarily the primary source of meaning, but together with ambient sounds, their sensuality and tonality have a radiating presence, which create a corporeal involvement. The work itself accommodates different levels of listening attention, without enforcing one in particular. "Every word was once an animal"1 someone said a long time ago denying the liberal humanist separation of mind/body or man/animal and the separation between those who claim all is language or all is material.
Producing the work, Gerold records the vocal part himself with a in a studio setting, much of what he reads gives the impression of proximity. Like those different modes the narration unfolds through contrasting contents. The renditions of localities present in the actual play, for example are mostly described through surfaces, like glass and metal, of modern architecture. Those emphasize the dimension of abstraction inherent to the play. It is only occasionally that this logic is interrupted by passages that talk about meteorological phenomena or historical events that convey tensions.
Atmospheric Disturbances therefore not only allows for narrative stratification, but also latches onto the catchword "mood", that frequented the political ether in 2018. As such, the work also is a result on reflecting on topics such as communication, demarcation, or disturbance. The work therefore transcends the subjective imagination to raise consciousness of the implicit
inscriptions that are part of all the messages and information that we receive daily.
—Cathrin Mayer and Maurin Dietrich.
1 RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Text
Atmospheric Distrubances
Text, sound and recordings by Armin Lorenz Gerold.
Read by Armin Lorenz Gerold and Mathea Hoffmann.
Text translations and copy editing by Shahin Zarinbal and Eirik Bar.
Video animations by Michael Amstad.
Filming and digital drawings by Armin Lorenz Gerold.
Text contains quoted segments from conversation between Eileen Myles and Olivia Laing retrieved from
instagram.com/jhdname
Documentation: LambdaLambdaLambda, Fondation Botín /Fluent
Exhibition views
Atmospheric Disturbances. Spoken word, stereo sound, booklet. Installation views at LambdaLambdaLambda, 2018