Bill Fontana, Sounds Reconstructing Space
Mary L. Chou
When Bill Fontana first visited the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof, once Berlin’s largest railway station, he described it as an acoustically haunting experience as he imagined the ghostly sounds of trains and people. During the Weimar Republic, Anhalter Bahnhof was a monumental building that served as a central hub of commerce in the western part of Berlin. Presently, only the façade stands as a constant reminder of the damage sustained by the city during World War II. As an artist-in-residence in Berlin during the fall of 1984, Fontana created Entfernte Züge (Distant Trains), a sound sculpture in which he transmitted live sounds from the Hauptbahnhof, one of Cologne’s busiest railway stations, to the abandoned Anhalter Bahnhof. By burying the loudspeakers in the ground, situated in two parallel rows mimicking the layout of the platform and tracks, visitors physically experienced the displaced sounds as they would in an active station. Fontana explains, "In 1984, there were still many people alive in Berlin who had memories of the living Anhalter Bahnhof. They would hear it re-sounding again from a distance…. Coming back to it again as a rebuilt acoustic station was strange and emotional."
Fontana uses the concept of acoustic memory in his works, a term he defines as "the accumulative memory that seems [to lie within] old architectural sites." For Entfernte Züge, acoustic memory is "all the sounds that ever happened in a busy place…and that in some way never stop echoing. I am trying to evoke that sensibility of the timelessness of a site." For Fontana, such historical sites have their own memory, resonating throughout the solid material of the site–its ground, walls and ceilings. However, the work also captures the attention of residents and visitors who recall these displaced sounds from a different time or place. As a railway station that deported thousands of Jews to concentration camps during World War II, Anhalter Bahnhof is a site fraught with tension. By linking the present day sounds of Cologne to the silenced past of Berlin, Entfernte Züge invites the public to consider how the past is remembered within the context of the present.
Since the mid-1970s, Fontana has been displacing sounds from their original source into unsuspecting places through live transmissions. His sound sculptures arrest people in a moment of unfamiliarity, refocusing their attention on the aural environment and emphasizing the integral role of sound in shaping everyday experiences. By preserving the associative qualities of found sounds in his work, listeners are reminded of a different place or time. As a result, memory becomes an integral component in his sound sculptures. Through the process of immersing people in altered acoustic spaces, Fontana investigates how the collective public remembers the past and envisions the future in the time of the present.
Fontana describes his work as "sound sculptures" following the phrase Duchamp included in his notes for the Green Box. By using sculpture to describe sound, Duchamp attributes a material quality to sound, making it less transitory and thus, more permanent. Similarly, Fontana creates works with a sculptural presence by transmitting live sounds to speakers selectively positioned throughout a space. By composing with a keen sense of how architecture and ambient sounds interact with transposed sounds, he creates a kinesthetic experience for the visitor.
Fontana has enjoyed considerable success creating sound sculptures in major cities throughout the world including San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Berlin and Kyoto. In 1994, he installed a sound sculpture at the Arc de Triomphe during the 50th anniversary of D-Day. One component of Sound Island consisted of live transmissions of sounds from the coast of Normandy to loudspeakers situated on the sides of the Arc de Triomphe. As visitors approached the arch through the underground tunnels, they heard the gurgling underwater sounds of the lapping ocean. Upon emerging from the tunnels, visitors were enveloped in the white noise of the waves, broadcasted at a frequency that masked the sound of traffic encircling the arch. The effect is one of strange displacement; while surrounded by an endless stream of honking cars, the visitor is suspended on an island, hearing only the perpetual repetition of crashing waves against the shore.
Sound Island investigates the role of sound in destabilizing the permanence of monuments and architecture. Fontana states, "I am fascinated by the relationships between sound and architecture, transforming architecture with sound because architecture is massive and sound is ephemeral. It’s a way of deconstructing architecture." While submerging the arch in waves challenges the permanence of the monument, the solidity of the arch is also reinforced by its connection to the eternal sounds of nature. The timeless sounds of the ocean also call attention to the permanently burning flame of remembrance for the unknown soldiers who died during World War I.
In 1994, shortly after completing Sound Island, Fontana traveled to Cologne to create a permanent sound installation commissioned by the Diözesanmuseum Köln for its new building called Kolumba. The new museum would incorporate the remains of the gothic church of St. Kolumba, located in Cologne’s city center. The church was almost completely destroyed in World War II; only the statue of St. Mary remained. For almost fifty years when the church was in ruins, thousands of pigeons nested in the rafters of the temporary wooden roof. Struck by the sounds of these birds, Fontana created an eight-channel recording of the pigeon soundings within the abandoned space, capturing as well the city sounds of Cologne that seeped through the walls.
In 2005, over ten years after the initial recording, Fontana was contacted by the Diözesanmuseum to install his work in the new space designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The museum rises from the old foundations of St. Kolumba, housing the ruins with 40-foot porous walls constructed with bricks of the same color and material as the existing remains; enclosed gallery spaces are located above these ruins. As the space was much larger than Fontana anticipated, he re-mastered his original recording to create Pigeon Soundings, a recreation of the acoustic life of these temporary inhabitants through the installation of 24 loudspeakers along the perimeter of the building. The effect is surreal–as visitors enter the vast space, the sounds of cooing pigeons, fluttering wings, bells and street traffic commingle with the present day sounds of the city. Perception is suspended as people attempt to distinguish between live and recorded sounds. In his 1997 proposal for the museum, Zumthor described the design as "reconciliatory and integrative," a building that "integrates and shelters the old structure [and] does not eliminate traces or destroy without necessity." Fontana’s sound sculpture eloquently echoes Zumthor’s approach by preserving the sounds of the birds that were necessarily removed from the site when construction began. By recalling the acoustic memory of the site, one that was unheard by most people for almost fifty years, Pigeon Soundings highlights how nature has a way of inhabiting spaces abandoned by people in times of transition. Fontana explains, "In this passage of nameless birds, the space was returned to a pure state of timelessness, where all of its sounds were supposed to be unheard. These pigeon soundings became the space dreaming to itself." As a permanent installation, the sound sculpture not only preserves acoustic memory, but also functions as a memorial to the city’s past; the recorded sounds of Cologne from 1994 are becoming increasingly distinct from the future soundscape of the city.
Fontana’s sound sculptures complicate the way we think about eternity and temporality. He inverts the ephemeral nature of sounds by making sounds more sculptural, permanent and accessible through technological innovation. At the same time, his works question the permanence of structures that shape our cityscape, using sites where architecture and buildings have fallen to ruins. By arresting our senses–making us stop and listen–at sites of historical significance, Fontana’s work investigates the ways in which collective memory is constructed. Using sounds to transform experience, Fontana creates new possibilities for envisioning future memorials and public spaces that engage both the eternal and ephemeral nature of time, space and memory as simultaneous experiences in contemporary society.
Although the Kolumba Museum is still under construction, visitors can arrange a viewing of Pigeon Soundings by contacting the museum: http://www.kolumba.de/. For more information on Bill Fontana’s work and to listen to excerpts from his sound sculptures, visit: http://www.resoundings.org/.
