A R K


Commissioned work for Arken. Arken's permanent collection. Duration 20 minutes. © 2006.

In the summer of 2006 ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj, Denmark had the pleasure of commissioning Jacob Kirkegaard to create a sound portrait of the museum. The portrait is now part of our ARKcast project, that combines podcasting with the use of portable media players as a part of the museum experience.
When I first got the idea of asking Jacob to create a sound portrait, I thought his work with vibration sensors would be a fantastic way to experience the unique architecture of ARKEN - as sound. This technique makes the building, the concrete walls and steel construction come to life, like the secret sounds of the huge steel pillar that is now part of the portrait.
In addition to working with sensors, Jacob also employed the technique he had perfected in Tjernobyl with his Aion work. This method does not only let the material building speak, but makes the spaces themselves sing in long billowing drones.
That Jacob chose this technique of layering silence to make the resonant frequencies of the room speak up, takes on a interesting conceptual turn when employed in the spaces of the museum: The tracks come to speak of the way an art institution always influences and colors the art it presents. When the art speaks the institution whispers along – it resonates so to say. Jacob's sound portrait of ARKEN literally turns the resonance of the museum into the work itself. Feeding back the institutions whispers, making them into loud singing drones that fill the spaces as dense as water.
Magnus Kaslov, ARKEN

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ARK for ARKcast
Museum of Modern Art in Denmark

In the summer of 2006 ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj, Denmark had the pleasure of commissioning Jacob Kirkegaard to create a sound portrait of the museum. The portrait is now part of our ARKcast project, that combines podcasting with the use of portable media players as a part of the museum experience.

When I first got the idea of asking Jacob to create a sound portrait, I thought his work with vibration sensors would be a fantastic way to experience the unique architecture of ARKEN - as sound. This technique makes the building, the concrete walls and steel construction come to life, like the secret sounds of the huge steel pillar that is now part of the portrait. In addition to working with sensors, Jacob also employed the technique he had perfected in Tjernobyl with his Aion work. This method does not only let the material building speak, but makes the spaces themselves sing in long billowing drones.

That Jacob chose this technique of layering silence to make the resonant frequencies of the room speak up, takes on a interesting conceptual turn when employed in the spaces of the museum: The tracks come to speak of the way an art institution always influences and colors the art it presents. When the art speaks the institution whispers along – it resonates so to say. Jacobs sound portrait of ARKEN literally turns the resonance of the museum into the work itself. Feeding back the institutions whispers, making them into loud singing drones that fill the spaces as dense as water.

The portrait falls in three parts. Part one is a made from the resonance of ARKENs large central space The Axis; part two from accelerometer recordings of a steel pillar in ARKENs inner courtyard; and part 3 from the resonance of ARKENs Large Gallery.

Magnus Kaslov, ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Denmark 2006