The Tin Can Telephone Experiment is a participatory sound installation developed in collaboration with students from die Schule im Nibelungenviertel (Class 7B) and Grundschule an der Hasenheide (Classes 6C and 4B) in Bernau, Brandenburg. The work centres on the tin can telephone, a classic mechanical acoustic device, treating it simultaneously as a functional sonic instrument, a canvas for visual subversion, and a hands-on framework for understanding the relationship between material, vibration and the body in the act of communication.

The installation consists of an assortment of functional tin can telephones and DIY interventions that explore sound fidelity, sonic networks and effects for visitors to engage with. Central to the installation is a series of Limited Edition Surprise Bags, inspired by Fluxus multiples: small assemblage kits designed and prepared by the students, each containing all the components required to build a working tin can telephone. Each kit also includes Funny Food Labels, hand-drawn tin can labels that parody supermarket iconography and playfully critique mass consumption in the style of Wacky Packages (Art Spiegelman) trading cards. The Surprise Bags were available by donation in the gallery shop, raising over €112 for the Tierschutzverein Niederbarnim e.V., the local animal shelter in the Ladeburg district of Bernau.

This artwork was created as part of MAX – Artists in Residence an Brandenburger Schulen, a program of the Cultural Education Platform Brandenburg, initiated by the Brandenburg Gate Foundation, and funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg, the EWE Foundation, the Liebelt Foundation and the Schering Foundation.

All diagrams and illustrations in The Tin Can Telephone Experiment were drawn by Darsha in Procreate using an Apple Pencil, the Technical Pencil brush and a custom colour palette titled Tin Can.

Darsha thanks her student collaborators, as well as Jana Kuhn of Plattform Kulturelle Bildung Brandenburg and Maya Peers, Director of Museum Neuruppin, for their support in creating this work.
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Das Blechdosen – Telefon – Experiment ist eine partizipative Klanginstallation, die in Zusammenarbeit mit Schülerinnen und Schülern der „Schule im Nibelungenviertel“ (Klasse 7B) und der „Grundschule an der Hasenheide“ (Klassen 6C und 4B) in Bernau, Brandenburg, entwickelt wurde. Im Mittelpunkt der Arbeit steht das Dosentelefon, ein klassisches mechanisch-akustisches Gerät, das gleichzeitig als funktionales Klanginstrument, als Träger visueller Subversion und als praktischer Rahmen zum Verständnis der Beziehung zwischen Material, Schwingung und Körper im Kommunikationsakt betrachtet wird.

Die Installation besteht aus einer Auswahl funktionierender Dosentelefone und Do It Yourself Interventionen, die sich mit Klangtreue, akustischen Netzwerken und Effekten auseinandersetzen und die Besucher zum Mitmachen einladen. Im Mittelpunkt der Installation steht eine Serie von Limited Edition Wundertüten, die von Fluxus-Multiples inspiriert sind: kleine, von den Schülerinnen und Schülern entworfene und zusammengestellte Bastelsets, die alle notwendigen Komponenten zum Bau eines funktionierenden Dosentelefons enthalten. Jedes Set enthält außerdem Funny Food Labels – handgezeichnete Etiketten für Konservendosen, die die Ikonographie von Supermärkten parodieren und den Massenkonsum im Stil der Wacky Packages (Art Spiegelman) -Sammelkarten spielerisch kritisieren. Diese Wundertüten waren im Galerieshop gegen eine Spende erhältlich; dabei kamen über 112 € für den Tierschutzverein Niederbarnim e.V., das örtliche Tierheim im Ortsteil Ladeburg der Stadt Bernau zusammen.

Dieses Kunstwerk entstand im Rahmen von „MAX – Artists in Residence an Brandenburger Schulen“. „MAX – Artists in Residence an Brandenburger Schulen” ist ein Programm der Plattform Kulturelle Bildung Brandenburg, auf Initiative der Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, und wird gefördert mit Mitteln des Ministeriums für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes Brandenburg, der EWE-Stiftung, der Liebelt Stiftung und der Schering-Stiftung.

Alle Diagramme und Illustrationen in „The Tin Can Telephone Experiment“ wurden von Darsha in Procreate mit einem Apple Pencil, dem Technical Pencil und einer benutzerdefinierten Farbpalette namens Tin Can gezeichnet.

Darsha bedankt sich bei ihren mitwirkenden Schülerinnen und Schülern sowie bei Jana Kuhn von der Plattform Kulturelle Bildung Brandenburg und Maya Peers, der Direktorin des Museums Neuruppin, für ihre Unterstützung bei der Entstehung dieses Werks.

Photo Credit: Andrea Vollmer

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The installation provides materials and workspace for building functional sound resonators. A large-scale hand-drawn diagram and how-to video guide participants through constructing lo-fi resonant devices similar to a gramophone horn, using balloons, tin cans, needles, and glue. Participants then select a record, place it on a modified record player, and position their resonator to hear acoustic transmissions of the music. In doing so, they make sound’s material conditions tangible by tracing the physical logic of recorded audio from groove to air, in a setting that moves between physical experiment, experimental sound and craft workshop.

The How To diagram was illustrated by Darsha in Procreate using an Apple Pencil, the Technical Pencil brush and a custom colour palette titled Tin Can.

Instructions for Listening to Broken Music was commissioned by Kunstmuseum Bochum for HOW WE MET, a major group exhibition centred on the Fluxus collection of gallerist Inge Baecker, presented alongside contemporary artists responding to this legacy. 

The creation of this artwork was supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Germany.

Special thanks to Eva Busch and Shasti for their support in making this work possible. And further thanks to Ateliers Belleville, and curators of Construction/Conduction —  Mathieu Arsenault et Sarah Ève Tousignant.

Photo Credit: Alexis Bellavance + Camille Dubuc

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Along with the support of the artist and volunteers, the public interprets a large-scale schematic and builds squarewave oscillators that make popping metronomic beats that are amplified by a series of relatively old and somewhat broken-down household loudspeaker placed throughout the space. Over the course of the event, an immersive soundscape builds up where pops, clicks, and squeaks slip in and out of sync, creating unexpected encounters with harmony and happenstance.

This work engages experimentation with DIY electronics, hand-crafting and dynamic troubleshooting as an improvisational approach to experimental sound, while creating moments of communal agency and a playful demystification of technology through direct material engagement.

This work was produced in the context of the Open HertzLab at Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (DE) and further developed for Instrumentarium at WRO Art Centre (PL), where it was brought into dialog with Paweł Janicki’s autonomous prepared Piano Music Box r30.

Special thanks to Lea Luka Sikau (Curator — HertzLab, ZKM) and Vita Louis Mahomedova (Curator / Producer Instrumentarium – WRO Art Center).

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High Fidelity Wasteland III: Broken Loudspeaker Pop presents a landscape of broken down loudspeakers collected from the trash and donated from the local community in Frankfurt am Main (DE). Rather than playing music, each loudspeaker amplifies an individual square wave oscillator which produces a consistent thumping, clicking, crackling or popping sound. While each speaker embodies a unique acoustic character emphasized by its innate material deterioration, the installation as a whole creates a pluvial soundscape that evolves over time as they fall in and out of synchronization in an aleatory manner. To further emphasize the material dimensions of sound, the technical infrastructure is approached in a very visual and tactile manner. Rather than being generic and and hidden out of sight – cables, power sources and hand-wired circuits in this work are bright, colourful and exposed and treated as an expressive artistic material.

Artwork commissioned in the context of a Residency in at Atelier Goldstein for the “On Hearing” program 2023. Further production support provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Photos: Elena Osmann

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High Fidelity Wasteland II: The Protoplastic Groove is an immersive sound installation consisting of a 1950s era record player that devolves the audible timescale of music from the past. The work amplifies and inhabits the impurities, noise and biological origins of shellac records – the precursor to vinyl as we know it today. Rather than rapidly spinning classical compositions and nostalgic hits at the standard 78 rpm, this work slows everything down to a mere 16 revolutions per minute and stretches sound into a sombrely encompassing landscape.

The shellac record was the first ever disk-shaped recording medium which allowed people to own, collect and listen to music in the domestic setting. As a material, shellac looks and behaves like any other plastic; however, this dark resin has organic origins. It is bioadhesive matter excreted by the tree dwelling Lac beetle which is used to create a protective shelter for her offspring. Chemically similar to synthetic polymers, shellac is considered a natural form of plastic. And though shellac was rapaciously harvested and commodified throughout the 20th century to make music tangible, the era of the shellac record represents the only (and very short-lived) period where the music recording industry was sustainable.

Initial research for this second work in the High Fidelity Wasteland trilogy was supported by the German Phonograph Museum which was made possible through a residency at Kunstverein Global Forest e.V. in St. Georgen in the Black Forest. The production of this artwork was made possible through the European Media Art Platform / EMARE program at KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis. The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for the Arts for their ongoing support. Special thanks to Daniel Stigler, Irene Pérez Hernández, Studio Alex Rex and  Olsen Wolf.

Photos by Romane-Iskaria

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Wading into the toxic haze of early transmission infrastructure, this installation sonifies the decaying atmosphere inside a thyratron – a 100 year old vacuum tube radiating a cloud of blue ionized mercury. Vacuum tubes generated, amplified and controlled some of the earliest flows of electrons signalling the start of widespread communication networks – radio, tv, telephony, computing. Though produced prior to practices of planned obsolescence and outliving industrial lifecycles of technology today, the decommissioned liquified metals of the thyratron represent one of the multitude of ruinous substrates of post industrial ecology.

Audio produced in collaboration with AGF (aka Antye Greie-Ripatti)
Technical support provided by Daniel Stigler

Commissioned by transmediale – festival for art and digital culture Berlin as part of the culture program related to Canada’s Guest of Honour presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2020.Produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada.

Further sponsorship provided by Martion – Audiosysteme.

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The Sideman 5000 the world’s first commercially available drum machine, invented by Wurlitzer and brought to market in 1959. Though this electro-mechanical musical instrument was built to be repaired and serviced as it aged, it had a rather short commercial life. It was quite giant, weighted over 60 pounds, very expensive and rapidly replaced by much smaller transistor based electronics — most Sidemans ended up in the garbage.

This is a sister artwork to Shimmer Generators V.2D and A Sideman 5000 Adventure

Photo credit: Hannes Woidich

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The site of this photographic investigation takes place inside the revived sound generating circuitry of the very rare Sideman 5000, the world’s first commercially available drum machine, invented by Wurlitzer and brought to market in 1959. Though this electro-mechanical musical instrument was built to be repaired and serviced as it aged, it had a rather short commercial life. It was quite giant, weighted over 60 pounds, very expensive and rapidly replaced by much smaller transistor based electronics — most Sidemans ended up in the garbage. These photos are part of the artist’s media-archeological dive into the machine.

This is a sister artwork to Shimmer Generators V.3D and A Sideman 5000 Adventure

This work was commissioned by Eastern Bloc and made in collaboration with Lena Maria Loose and Carolin Meyer

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Production of this work was made possible with the generous support of Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst in Oldenburg Germany, Le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and Hexagram Concordia.

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