Gottfried Martin :: Dieter Kaufmann :: Günther Rabl
AUSTRIAN SOUNDSCAPE
April - September 1992, Austrian pavilion, EXPO '92, Sevilla
September - October 1992, Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, Austria

Concept: Gottfried Martin
Music: Gottfried Martin, Dieter Kaufmann, Günther Rabl
Loudspeaker setup & acoustic staging: Günther Rabl
Loudspeaker design: Rainer Verbizh
Technical direction: Toni Schuster

AUSTRIAN SOUNDSCAPE was based on the idea of Gottfried Martin, a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and a passionate composer of computermusic, too.

Gottfried Martin (1944-2010)

Three composers (Gottfried Martin, Dieter Kaufmann and me) were invited to create a collection of short pieces computermusic which were intended to be played from CDs in a random shuffle mode for six months every day. The CDs were produced by amadeo.

Gottfried Martin: A Classical Austrian Soundscape / Austrian Landscape

Dieter Kaufmann: Blech und Kehle / Schrott und Korn

Günther Rabl: Farewell Tempered Piano / Odyssee

According to the concept of the interior designerer Rainer Verbizh and my setup, Toni Schuster had built 24 fullrange loudspeakers in spheroid cases, which I distributed all over the pavillon in a topological chess-pattern.

2 of 24 spheroid speakers, foto: Toni Schuster

View inside the pavillon, foto: Expo catalog

The pavillion, however, was not mainly dedicated to our music. The building was acoustically polluted by a lot of noise and 'musac' (the air condition, the fridge and the rattle of the restaurant inside the pavilion, the advertizings, an interactive grand piano for everybody to play with, a virtuel ski racing and more falderal the like). And so was the area outside. Thousends of nasty loudspeakers were chirping the products of Western entertainment industry everywhere and all day long; trains and cable cars; hundreds of booths selling snacks and refreshments and gadgets with big ballyhoo ....
I left Sevilla one day before the official opening of the Expo. I guess the staff of the pavillion simply turned our music off most of the time.

* * *

Against this background the 'Offenes Kulturhaus' in Linz decided to give our project another chance. The whole building (a formar convent school with a plenty of rooms on 2000 sqm) was at our disposal for a big sound-exhibition in September 1992 - totally dedicated to our music.

Artistic director and speaker setup: Günther Rabl
Technical director: Klaus Hollinetz
Light design: Rainer Jessel
Room design: Gerhard Neulinger
Technical support: Toni Schuster
Producer: Offenes Kulturhaus

There were five rooms and one area outside the building for six compositions running in a loop. In the main hall and in the corridors the entire music was played in a random shuffle mode as originally planned for the Expo.

G.R.