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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is a selected set of photos from a series taken in 2007. Abandoned spaces like this are from old soviet collective farms, however they  are rapidly disappearing. Structures like this decayed so rapidly because of the poor methods of construction. It was common for people to steal any valuable materials for their own use while letting the ‘collective’ (state owned property) to fall victim to the lowest standard. I converted the images to black and white thinking of them as a shadow of the place I visited to take these photos. What you see has since been destroyed (but has a new storage barn built in its place by a local farmer).

I finally managed to visit a curious location in a forest in south Estonia and discovered that it indeed was one of the former soviet nuclear missile silos. As I’ve seen, most missile bases were mobile launching pads for missiles that were stored on trucks in bunkers. In this location the missiles were actually stored vertically in silos. It is likely that these bases were armed right up until the time of Estonian re-independance in 1991 when the soviet army pulled out. As you can see in the photos the site is being excavated and will eventually be filled in (I assume). Not having much time, I only managed to record the sound of stones dropping into the water at the bottom. The silos were quite deep and very resonant as you can hear.

stones tossed into an abandoned soviet nuclear missile silo (2:13) mp3 file

While visiting Riga this past weekend we were able to gain access (officially) to the old power station in Riga. The power station, which generated heat for the city, ceased operations in 2003 and is slowly undergoing a process of transformation, yet the building and many old artifacts remain. There are plans to convert the structure into the Contemporary Art Museum of Latvia. This was the third visit to the site, the first two were during the Riga Sound Locations workshop. The recordings are from live actions in the space, particularly the “great hall” with its huge empty water tank as a central feature.

Some recordings in the space:

Riga power station binaural sound walk mp3 file

Riga power station internal water tank drones mp3 file

An urban research group in Tartu was looking at the phenomenon of urban exploration. I suggested to make a small trip somewhere in the city. Out of a few interesting possibilities we decided on the former meat factory, a site full of urban legends, as it is fairly central and easily accessible. This meat factory stopped production some time in the early 1990s but the evidence of their production is still visible everywhere. On the third floor there are literally rooms filled with piles of bones from what appeared to be sheep. The rest of the building is mostly trashed. It seems to be a popular to practice graffiti and make fires. The highlight was the view from the roof and being able to make a few sound recordings with the group.

One important idea for me is to not only explore these types of hidden or abandoned spaces, but to instigate some creative activity while visiting. While abandoned spaces may not be valuable for the society, they offer creative potential for the individual, who often forgets how much the everyday social codes, laws and regulations of the urban environment confines their mode of living. Once these boundaries or removed, even the very experience of navigating and sensing the urban space must be reconsidered, opening potentials for more creative exploration (however short or ephemeral). These two recordings give some idea on how working with sound can allow one to interact with the material objects and forms of the space. The first case was more of a simple walking action on the broken glass while the second was more of an improvisation with all the available materials throughout the space.

former meat factory – walking action (3:20) Tartu, Estonia: urban expoliration01

former meat factory – sound action (7:28) Tartu, Estonia: urban exploration02

Special thanks to Sven and the others from Linnaseminar for this trip. Also, Tanel Saimre from Tartu has a nice page of binaural recordings made around Tartu. He has a recording of the same sound action but from another angle (his head!). Tanel Siamre recording

UPDATE: Nov. 5th 2008 – the former meat factory has been demolished. Someone said they wanted to convert it into apartments or something, but I think it needs to be torn down before anything new is built there (see the last photo in the gallery).

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Riga Sound Locations was a four day workshop that took place at various spaces around the city of Riga, Latvia. The project starts with the concept of site-specific artistic activity while integrating contemporary sound recording practices that cover areas of “performance”, “field recording”, “improvisation” and “documentation”. With the site being the prime focus, the artist as actor and instigator uses the means of sound to investigate the qualities of of the surrounding space and his or place in it. Riga Sound Locations (”Rīgas Skaņu Vietas“) was a workshop conducted from August 14-16th at various sites around Riga and was organized by Maksims Shentelevs and myself in cooperation with NOASS. The aim of the workshop was to visit 6 different locations around the city in order to investigate site-specific sound activity related to each place. These activities would be recorded and filmed to document each intervention. A group of about 6 people went out each day to see what could be found that was unique to each locations. The sites included an abandoned apartment, construction site, former power station, abandoned warehouse, old military airport and a backyard. Apart from the backyard all of these locations were temporary in the sense that they either being developed or destroyed at some point in the near future. So not only were we documenting our activities we attempted to capture the transitional feeling of the spaces.

day 1, at an abandoned flat across the Daugava river.

day 1, 25 stories up on the roof of a new skyscraper

day 1, Jekabs tries to contact mic a noisy construction elevator

day 2, playing found plates at an empty factory space

day 2, ringing hanging pipes at an empty factory space

day 2, exploring the steam turbine at the former Riga power station

day 3, rolling ceramic insulators at an abandoned military air hangar

day 3, improvising with found objects in an abandoned air hangar

day 3, an improv session in the backyard

day 4, returning to the former power station

day 4, Patrick McGinley joins in to play the steam turbine wheel

The video recordings were edited and presented as an installation at the SKAN sound art event in Riga from September 26th to October 13th.

Former Riga Power Station (2:02) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

Former Military Airplaine Hangar (2:08) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

Backyard Improvidation (2:20) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

participants included: John Grzinich, Toomas Thetloff, Maksims Šenteļevs, Jēkabs Nīmanis, Kaspars Kalniņš, Gints Birznieks, Ivars Šmits, Ivars Gravlējs, Mārtiņš Strautnieks (Martines Gonzales), Jānis Biķis, Kaspars Groševs, Patrick McGinley, Johanna Lonka

Check the Sound Locations channel on Vimeo for more documentation

Click here to view the embedded video.