15 ellipsoid bodies installed on the grassy areas of the aerodynamic park in Berlin-Adlershof, in a loose spatial relation to monuments of the industrial age and the university buildings. The work AIR BORNE, created as a permanent exhibit for the park, opens up a narrative space of sound and text within the imagination.

The idea behind the soundscape is to allow temporal levels at 15 selected positions to become palpable in the form of narrative, ambient sounds whilst interleaving them with the here and now. The starting point for the work was over a thousand sound pieces, making up a composition which is greatly overstretched temporally in interplay with its spatial context.

The basis for the sound pieces was provided by authentic audio files from the German radio archive (Deutsche Rundfunkarchiv) in Babelsberg. Together with the Viennese composer Karlheinz Essl, this material was drawn upon to electronically create ‘remembrance images’ of the place and its associations using software specially programmed by Essl. As the sounds last for a short period of time whereas the passages of silence which separate them are long and the spatial distance between the individual positions is large, it will take years to completely experience the composition as a whole.

The ellipsoids, which are equipped with loudspeakers, also include an engraved text on their outer shells which opens up a narrative space within the imagination. Thus, the work continues to exert a presence and maintain expectation, even during the silent parts of the pieces. During these blank spaces, the sound backdrop of today’s aerodynamic park itself becomes part of the aesthetic concept and part of a composition which encompasses everyday life.