© 2010 john grzinich tuefelsberg

teufelsberg listening station

It was a busy week in Berlin but one of the nice surprises was a visit to Teufelsberg, a former NSA ‘listening station’ that has been abandoned since the wall came down. This small complex of buildings sits on top of an artificial mountain of rubble left over from the second world war. A group of us went to listen to something else, the space itself. Actually there were multiple spaces that included some old concrete military buildings and a series of geodesic domes, which I imagine, must have housed the surveillance equipment. The highest dome, sits at least 7 stories up, has a fiberglass shell that offers many sonic possibilities with its unique acoustic properties. The video below is composed of a few clips I filmed (in very windy conditions) while the sound is excerpted from a straight recording of a 40 minute improvisation of 5 people. Special thanks to Natalia for suggesting this and for Dusan to drive us out there in the snow.

3 Comments

  1. Posted 13 Feb ’10 at 22:44 | #

    from FSP, recording inside the gassholder in Kladno

    Playing tambourine, mbira, okarina, acordeon, plastic bottle and pipe from a lamp inside the gasholder at Poldi Kladno or Koněv . The recording is perfectly “natural”, no application of effects.

    milos

  2. Posted 15 Feb ’10 at 11:45 | #

    great sounding space Milos. Too bad it was destroyed.

  3. Posted 6 Oct ’10 at 20:04 | #

    Teufelsberg’s after-life soundings; surely a comprehensive resource via solar sensor-coverage & streaming site!
    well cross-referenced, indexed, comprehensive & audio experiments/events/sites = good looking public Web1 presence
    more
    “Too bad it was destroyed” ?
    WEB2.edu potential stream sites

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