Making the walls quake, as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers
Katarzyna Krakowiak (Poland) is currently an international artist in residency at Residency Unlimited in New York City during the months of October and November, 2012. Her work explores sculpture and architecture with the use of various media, notably sound. Her residency is organized in association with A-I-R Laboratory/Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Poland with support of the Polish Cultural Institute, New York .
Her recent piece, Making the walls quake, as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers, is currently on show at the The Polish Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia - Common Ground, where it has received special mention by the Biennale's jury.
The Polish Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia - Common Ground. August 29 – November 25, 2012
Exhibition Curator: Michał Libera, Sound Design: Ralf Meinz, Room Acoustics: Andrzej Kłosak, Polish Pavilion Commissioner: Hanna Wróblewska, Assistant Commisioner: Joanna Waśko, Organizer: Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
(photo by Krzysztof Pijarski, courtesy of Zacheta)
below is a brief from the project description:
"Katarzyna Krakowiak’s sound sculpture Making the walls quake as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers is the amplification of the Polish Pavilion as a listening-system. Rather than creating a new space, the artist’s proposal for the Architecture Biennale takes an empirical turn, taking the existing interior as its point of departure, with all its deficiencies and imperfections guiding the work. The art is in the “naked building”—presented through sculpture as a complex sonic process that generates, transforms, and transmits sound. Studies in the natural acoustics of the Polish Pavilion offer several ways to perform the amplification process. Architectural micro-deformations of the building’s walls and floor, the renovation of the ventilation system, and reinforcement of the resonant frequencies serve to bring this latent acoustic experience to the fore. The focus is on the secret but audibleknowledge inscribed in the niches, apses, bays and vestibules, full of longacknowledged deficiencies and forgotten paradoxes. None of the sounds in the Pavilion are alien to the building. They are all always already there. Yet, once amplified, the familiar ambient sounds become alien themselves. Beyond thevisual and the material, they compel us to hear what was always there—the others just outside the walls. Hence, the real subject of the work is essentially the entire architectural complex that is home to four other pavilions: Egypt, Romania, Serbia, and Venice."
More details on the installation and Kasia's work can be viewed here.
