A Million Keys

Untitled Sound Objects by Pe Lang + Zimoun


The above is a stunning collection of installation footage of untitled sound objects, an ongoing collaborative project between Pe Lang and Zimoun. See below for the artist’s statement.

In early 2004, Pe Lang and Zimoun began their collaboration “untitled sound objects”, a project in which physical materials are made to generate sound by vibrating them using computer controlled machines and robots. The artists focus on creating acoustic architecture with an organic feel, investigating the properties of sound, materials, resonance and generative systems. The work is presented as sound installations and as live performances.

These works are created by using small machines comprised of computer-monitored and programmed electromagnetic lifts, electromagnets and vibrating motors, in combination with different kinds of materials. Often the installations are used as a source for creating sounds as well as to continually evolve new acoustic spaces.

“We are interested in a selective mix between, on the one hand, living structures that are continuously generated or evolving by chance and chain reactions, and, on the other, a specifically delimited and contained space in which these events are allowed to happen. Our compositional intentions are manifested through deliberate containment and cautious monitoring. Thus, we are not preoccupying ourselves with chance factors and generative systems simply to discover unexpected results, but rather so that the compositions can attain a higher level of vitality.”