Denim Szram created Gedankenpendel, a speaker-ball that plays a continuous spoken thought, but when it's touched or moved, other thoughts begin to play simultaneously. The effect is quite disconcerting.
„Gedankenpendel" is an interactive sound installation with the aim to draw the visitors attention to his conciseness and his constant flow of thoughts. Various mental states are symbolized with sound and can be discovered by interacting with the sound sculpture. The installation consists of a sound-ball made out of 12 speakers hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. The visitor is able to interact with the sound object by swinging it like a pendulum. When the speaker- ball is hanging still, you can hear a clear and understandable speech played simultaneously out of the 12 speakers of the sound-object. This symbolizes mindfulness and concentration in the state of mediation. However when the speaker-ball is moved by the visitor, the clear speech turns into many overlapping and interfering thoughts. While swinging and rotating, the 12 speakers play various speech fragments at the same time. This stands for confusion and the distraction of thoughts. The visitor is not able to distinguish the hearable thoughts any more. The bigger the movement of the sound-object, the more confusing and distracted the sound. The more quiet the movement, the more concentrated and understandable the sound of the sound-ball. This embodies the constant flow of thoughts and shows the contrast between the concentrated and the distracted mind.
It has twelve speakers, which reminded me of the classic Steve Martin bit about his dodecaphonic stereo:
• GEDANKENPENDEL, interactive sound installation (YouTube / Denim Szram)
