6 The Reduction of Means

The works of Rolf Julius, such as Musik an einem Gebäude vorbei (1987), have been shaped by the dynamic interaction of the acoustic and visual or haptic qualities of materials, objects, and spaces. By reducing the means (e.g., through minimalistic, creative interventions; extremely muted and simple sounds; small, unimpressive objects), the material character and the contextual content of pebbles, sand, wood, air, everyday items, spaces, and surfaces are highlighted in the act of perception as if one were looking through an endoscope—as if one had entered these objects. In works such as Iter Magneticum (1986), Christina Kubisch creates a resonance between the visible traces of history and the characteristics of special spaces by making sounds from the past or from the functional context of the space perceptible as a dynamic meshwork. Both examples deal with intermodal processes of resonance between visual and acoustic stimuli. These processes become sources for the emergence of meaning.