Chelsea Leventhal

For “Ohrwald”, 21 speakers were installed along the 300-meter long tree-top walkway in Nationalpark Hainich. Pieces from Anja Erdmann, Andreas Vorwerk, Reingard Lipp, Hanns Holger Rutz, Ursula Meyer-König, Björn Lindig, PyoungRyang Ko, Christian Helm and myself were diffused in rotation. These sounds further augmented the otherwise uncommon experience of the forest from up to 25 meters above the ground. "Electric Forest II" uses ambisonic panning to project two "clouds" of sound that rotate in a large circle, traveling alongside and underneath the pathway. The visitor experiences a swarm of natural and synthetic insect sounds which passes through them, punctuated by equally ambiguous synthetic reproductions of a woodpecker drilling into wood. These sounds blend into the environment of the forest, but simultaneously challenge the expectations of the listener regarding timbre and spatialization.