…they record the sound of light. It is quite rare to see an exhibition so well balanced as the one organized by Sonic Acts in collaboration with the Netherlands Media Art Institute. The theme of this year’s festival, ‘the cinematic experience’, is presented through a careful choice of works that avoid the new media art film clichés of random database projections and other miseries. If you wondered whether sound and image could ever truly merge with screen ‘based’ works, go see this exhibition.

The exhibition could be said to consist of two parts. Highly immersive spaces involving rather synesthetic experiences, in which one looses track of the sensual boundaries between sound and visual spaces almost completely, each individually fill the first four exhibition rooms. These are the works of Ulf Langheinrich, Boris Debackere and Kurt Hentschlaeger. The last room, situated at the end of a long corridor like in a strange dream, is inhabited by two works of one artist: the French ‘magician’ Julien Maire.

Granular Synthesis artist Ulf Langheinrich has two quite different works in this exhibition. The first, oddly called ‘Soil’, consists of four screens showing a composition in blue. The room feels like it is in a different universe. The screens are windows onto an unreal sky. Embraced by the sound the audience is compelled to sit down on the bench in the middle of the room and feel itself slip away into something like a meditation. This ‘altered state of mind’ experience is actually re-enforced all through the rest of the exhibition. Langheinrich’s second work ‘OSC’ is nothing less then spectacular. It uses the ‘flicker’ phenomenon to bombard the audience with sound waves and light pulses that evoke faux visions and involuntary physical responses. This is the type of work that could provoke a seizure. This does not mean the experience of ‘OSC’ is unpleasant, on the contrary. It reminded me very much of Carsten Holler’s work ‘Licht Ecke’, an also overpowering and spectacular work in which pulsating light in combination with (in that case) the heat it radiates makes the work impossible to escape.

The Belgian artist Boris Debackere’s work ‘probe’ unfortunately handicapped by its set up. The room has been darkened with black curtains that obviously have been used for a party one too many times. The stench in the room is so penetrating it makes it difficult to stay there long. It is possible to watch the work from the corridor, but of course it is not ideal. As far as I could tell Debackere’s work is a subtle, maybe rather decorative work. It shows an animation of a thin lined drawing that moves and changes in a way that reminds of the works of the Austrian Turux group (Dextro and Lia).

Langheinrich’s ‘other half’ in Granular Synthesis Kurt Hentschlaeger presents an intriguing work called ‘scape’. It is intriguing because it is quite simple. A practically black and white still image, an image moving barely, is accompanied by a soundscape creating a contemplative installation. The work is pleasant and beautiful. Before seeing this work I heard the interview with the artist, in which he explained this work was a result of re-exploring his old interest in photography. ‘Scape’ can be seen as a merging of photography and cinema, in which the cinematic experience is stretched in time, in extreme slow motion.

Last but not least we enter the wondrous world of Julien Maire. His works are not about engaging the body by drawing it in ‘from the outside’. His interaction with the audience is created through opening up the camera, the projector and the processes of their production. There is no distinction between the inner processes of the machine and the projection. Inner environment of the camera and projector have merged with the projection or installation space. This is the cinematic experience imploded.Even if the exhibition is a 15-minute walk away from the rest of the Sonic Acts venues it is definitely worth while to take the time to visit it.
  Josephine Bosma