AUDIO SCULPTURE: sixteen hours in four parts

by Eric Maltz

– on view

31.08., 16-20h, Part1: 4h

01.09., 16-20h, Part2: 4h

02.09., 14-18h, Part3: 4h

03.09., 14-18h, Part4: 4h

LIVE PERFORMANCE

02.09.2023, 19h

Les Temps Englouti 19h

ARTIST TALK 20:30h

Riverbed is a site-specific durational audio sculpture and the first solo gallery show by sound and land artist Eric Maltz. 

Short recordings of the ambient noise in frei-raum.berlin are treated as if they were clay dug up from a river bed and shaped into an artifact, in the same way a vase or sculpture would be made. By using a specialized playback system, the illusion of a static sound object is created, giving corporality to sound waves and creating a river of time whose sameness one can almost touch twice.

This work explores time as the medium of sound. By capturing one, one captures both. It is not just sound that is sculpted and given body, but time; extending the present moment beyond average awareness. Riverbed playfully lives in the boundary between sound art and land art, creating a unique sounding landscape each day of the installation, where the listener is invited to stretch out, touch, and live inside the combination of two immaterial mediums: sound and time.

Saturday (02.09.) will see the inaugural performance of Les Temps Englouti, an ensemble which performs in the boundary between musical activity and the sounds of everyday life. The ensemble will interact with the Riverbed sound sculpture and accentuate the ambient atmosphere of frei-raum.berlin. Performing with the ensemble are musicians Carla Boregas (BR), Edith Steyer (DE), and Eric Maltz (US). 

Eric Maltz (US) is a sound and land artist exploring the malleability of perception through durational performance and sound sculptures. Works include Sun Dial I (DCF77) (2022) a site specific land art installation and 8 Hours or 8 Minutes (2022) an eight hour 8 minute long durational synthesizer performance. Using duration as an expressive medium, Eric blurs the boundaries between art-time and life-time. Each work is a frame, a possibility for an artistic experience to bleed over into everyday life, and vice-versa.