Playback Room
16 Feb - 24 Apr 2016
PLAYBACK ROOM
A Room for Studio Music
16 February – 24 April 2016
Everyone knows what a museum is: a space dedicated to the contemplation of works of visual art. No comparable venues exist where visitors can listen to music in studio quality. “Playback Room”, a series of projects conceived by Wolfgang Tillmans, seeks to close this gap with a room specifically designed for listening to recorded music.
Concert halls allow us to experience live music, and operas are staged in buildings erected for the purpose. Studio music as a distinctive art form stands out for lacking venues dedicated to its reception, even though many musicians regard the final recording of a song or album as the true essence of their art. They spend months in the studio working hard to produce a version with optimum sound quality, yet most playback equipment — including home audio systems and portable devices as well as commercial audio installations — is not fit for perfect sound reproduction. In recent years, digital compression has compounded the widespread problem of low sound quality in playback.
Music is no doubt an important source of inspiration for visual artists, and many of them have favorite recordings they deeply admire. Most attempts to put music in exhibition spaces resort to paraphernalia; presentations of the music itself in suitable facilities, which would also require high-end speaker systems, are the rare exception. The project “Playback Room” hopes to initiate a critical discussion of this divide.
The Lenbachhaus’s Georg Knorr Auditorium is temporarily converted into a music playback room and equipped with a high-end hi-fi sound system that allows visitors to listen to music in the original recording quality. Two playlists supplied by Wolfgang Tillmans will be heard in the room. The first, compiled by Wolfgang Tillmans, will be composed specifically for the Lenbachhaus; it will also contain tracks that were already part of Tillmans’s “Salle Techno” at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1994. The second playlist, titled “Colourbox – Music of the group (1982–1987)”, has previously been presented in the project space Between Bridges in Berlin. Evening events and a symposium will round out the project.
Curated by:
Wolfgang Tillmans
and
Elisabeth Giers, Matthias Mühling
A Room for Studio Music
16 February – 24 April 2016
Everyone knows what a museum is: a space dedicated to the contemplation of works of visual art. No comparable venues exist where visitors can listen to music in studio quality. “Playback Room”, a series of projects conceived by Wolfgang Tillmans, seeks to close this gap with a room specifically designed for listening to recorded music.
Concert halls allow us to experience live music, and operas are staged in buildings erected for the purpose. Studio music as a distinctive art form stands out for lacking venues dedicated to its reception, even though many musicians regard the final recording of a song or album as the true essence of their art. They spend months in the studio working hard to produce a version with optimum sound quality, yet most playback equipment — including home audio systems and portable devices as well as commercial audio installations — is not fit for perfect sound reproduction. In recent years, digital compression has compounded the widespread problem of low sound quality in playback.
Music is no doubt an important source of inspiration for visual artists, and many of them have favorite recordings they deeply admire. Most attempts to put music in exhibition spaces resort to paraphernalia; presentations of the music itself in suitable facilities, which would also require high-end speaker systems, are the rare exception. The project “Playback Room” hopes to initiate a critical discussion of this divide.
The Lenbachhaus’s Georg Knorr Auditorium is temporarily converted into a music playback room and equipped with a high-end hi-fi sound system that allows visitors to listen to music in the original recording quality. Two playlists supplied by Wolfgang Tillmans will be heard in the room. The first, compiled by Wolfgang Tillmans, will be composed specifically for the Lenbachhaus; it will also contain tracks that were already part of Tillmans’s “Salle Techno” at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1994. The second playlist, titled “Colourbox – Music of the group (1982–1987)”, has previously been presented in the project space Between Bridges in Berlin. Evening events and a symposium will round out the project.
Curated by:
Wolfgang Tillmans
and
Elisabeth Giers, Matthias Mühling