Bill fontana Remix Sonic Projections 1988 - 2020

October 4, 2020

In 1988 Bill Fontana caused a sensation with his project Sonic Projections from Schloßberg Graz. This took place within the framework of steirischer herbst and as part of the exhibition Reference points 38/88. The public space was the exhibition venue for all projects. Fifty years had passed since the so-called annexation of Austria to National Socialist Germany. And the exhibition, conceived by Werner Fenz, consisted of artistic interventions by 16 artists in the city of Graz. The specific locations were ideologically occupied by the National Socialists - the exhibition wanted to recall this function. The exhibition sparked conflicts and wild discussions around some of the artworks. Hans Haacke's memorial was even set on fire by neo-Nazis. 

Bill Fontana installed microphones at eight reference points in downtown Graz that played a role at the time of the National Socialist seizure of power, which captured the everyday sounds of the city. From the Schlossberg the sounds were sent down into the city, mixed with sounds that Fontana had recorded in other places around the world. For Fontana, these were beautiful and explicitly positive sounds - such as a pair of gibbons in the Thai rainforest, the singing of an Australian lyre-tail, and a foghorn at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. He wanted to penetrate every corner of the city with pleasant sounds and thus drive out terror with the intent of a kind of new beginning.

For his exhibition Primal Energies, Bill Fontana developed an updated edition of Sonic Projections—an audiovisual installation about the acoustic and visual aesthetics of renewable energies especially for Space01 at the Kunsthaus Graz. Due to nature conservation requirements, only very short interventions could be broadcast in the urban area of ​​Graz. Due to the pandemic, Fontana, who lives in San Francisco, was no longer able to travel to Graz to make the planned sound recordings. Instead, he unexpectedly found a few audio cassettes with recordings of the Sonic Projections from 1988 in his archive and digitized and remixed them.

Fontana has been using sound as a sculptural medium since the 1960s. Bill Fontana has dealt intensively with active listening in over 50 sound sculptures worldwide and in more than 20 intercontinental radio works. In particular, his more recent installations in Paris, London and San Francisco (some of which are also permanently installed in urban areas) contribute to physically experiencing and cognitively exploring the inherent sound of surroundings and their historical or cultural patterns. Since the beginning of his artistic career, the artist has questioned environmental issues through the possibility of a holistic perception of the "overlooked". With the radio version of his new installation on renewable energies in Graz, Fontana moves in the field of artistic research and dives into the acoustic and visual structures of water, wind, and geothermal energy in order to make them sensually tangible for the audience. 

You may follow this link to stream Remix Sonic Projections 1988 - 2020

You may follow this link to stream Primal Energies Radiomix