Little House Music
...Far from the entrance building, in the immediate vicinity of the show pavilion, Eller has set up a small, commercial greenhouse that has forfeited its actual function to transform itself into a sound space that cannot be entered. There are no creepers climbing the walls, but ten loudspeakers are arranged on the inner walls, which have been made opaque with white fleece, so that the entire volume of the interior is filled with the electronic string sounds produced especially for this purpose.
The expectation of being able to look into this glass house and perhaps discover rare plants is immediately disappointed. The familiar, the normal, does not occur. This contradiction, which directs the perception of the curious visitor in a different way, is part of one of Ulrich Eller's artistic strategies.
...The visitors who approach the mysterious white object experience another surprise. During their walk through the wide area of the horticultural show their ears have been given time up to the height of the pavilion to break down the usual background noise. His attention is all the more intensified when he slowly takes conscious note of an undefinable acoustic background escaping from the blind glass house
At this moment, listening becomes an experimental activity that demands the active participation of the listeners. They wonder what is to be heard and whether what is heard originates from the enclosure or from the environment ...The sound object is something that can be perceived by the eye and ear, but in a broader sense it is also an aspect of thought, an impulse for imaginative spaces that go beyond what is immediately accessible to the senses. The technique that makes this static circle of sound rotate is secondary and remains invisible, so that the object and the sounds become open to the imagination of the listeners. For Ulrich Eller, it is not about a fancy combination of sounds: he is interested in the images that arise in the listener's mind through acoustic impulses. The glass house itself remains the sound source, the viewers becomes the listeners. They can change their position of perception and thus weight the sound events, which leads to a different interpretation of what they hear. Depending on the pitch and rhythm of the tones, the sounds have a different effect on the person who is listening to them.
But the spatially fixed, located sequence of tones also allows the listeners to break away from the linear, irreversible time continuum of traditional sound. Interruptions, pauses, the pausing and the paradoxical silence of sound now become as audible as its temporal sequence.
The sounds no longer articulate themselves through a clearly measured time, but through time as space. Ulrich Eller's sound sculpture is to be seen profoundly as a reflection on hearing per se. It is an installation of perception and imagination. It is as sensual as it is philosophical.
Annie Bardon: “Eine kleine Hausmusik” von Ulrich Eller, Landesgartenschau, Wismar
Ulrich Eller, Eine kleine Hausmusik, Verborgene Gärten, Internationales Kunstprojekt zur Landesgartenschau, Wismar 2002
Commercial greenhouse: L 3m, W 1.85m, H 2m, white fleece, speakers, 4-channel composition, cable, electronic equipment.