The Resonance Project: Sound as Space

For his ongoing Resonance Project, artist Oliver Beer has developed a vocal technique with which he can stimulate the empty space in any building to resound according to its resonant frequencies – creating an extraordinary force of vibration and revealing the ‘voice’ of the building. Through this technique Beer is able to work with classically trained singers to transform a building into a musical instrument, much in the same way that a wine glass can be made to sing with the tip of a finger. Beer then composes complex polyphonic music for these newly audible ‘architectural instruments’, which is woven into immersive live performances; and he even goes so far as to build architectural spaces with their dimensions calculated to resound at specific musical harmonies, such as his monumental installation “Rabbit Hole” which he built at MAC Lyon in 2014.

Oliver Beer is a visual and sound artist whose musical background is reflected in a distinct sensitivity to sound and in an interest on the overlap between sound, space and architecture, which he expresses through performance, film and sculpture. His works have been shown in museums and galleries across the world from the Pompidou Centre to MoMA PS1; and he is currently creating a new commission for the architecture of the Sydney Opera House in 2018.

Image: Oliver Beer, The Resonance Project: Composition for a New Museum
2014; Architectural acoustic performance for Fondation Louis Vuitton by Frank Gehry, Paris
Image © the artist