Harvestworks Art and Technology Program presents Hans Tammen’s Sonic Flotsam with special guest Johannes S. Sistermann’s in the exhibition Time-Based Art: Space and Time in Tune. Taking off from Pauline Oliveros’ Apple Box approach, a suitcase (usually found in the city the piece is performed in) acts as the instrument. Together with its contact microphones it functions as a filter and amplifier for the sounds coaxed from its resonant body. For the performance on Governors Island the project will be augmented by Johannes S. Sistermann activation of the interior and walls of the performance space.
DATES AND TIMES: Saturday June 28, 2025 @ 6 pm
LOCATION: Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island
FREE – limited seating
ARTIST STATEMENT BY HANS TAMMEN
In 2016 I was rummaging through the garbage piles in the Hamburg/Wilhelmsburg neighborhood to find an object I could coax sounds from. Eventually the crap I collected made it back to the garbage heap, as I bought an old leather suitcase for €1 in a thrift store. I remembered an exhibition about immigration from Bremen to New York, and the image of a room full of such suitcases immediately came to my mind when I saw the one in the thrift store.
Taking off from Pauline Oliveros’ Apple Box approach, the suitcase acts as the instrument. Together with its contact microphones it functions as a filter and amplifier for the sounds coaxed from its resonant body. This project is an alternative to the use of (disembodied) field recordings when relating to a specific location. The object has to come from the city I am performing in, and by exploring its sonic properties I am imagining (this is the absurdist part) what the object would say to us if it could talk.
Sonic Flotsam 2025 is an update on the original project that was using small handheld fans in the past. As part of a Harvestworks Artist in residency grant from 2019, Harvestworks engineer Emad Jamal built an arduino-based motor system that allows me to control the motor speed in realtime.
For the performance on Governors Island the project will be augmented by Johannes S. Sistermann activation of the interior and walls of the performance space.
All Photos by Gerhard Kühne
• BIOS
Hans Tammen is just another worker in rhythms, frequencies and intensities. He likes to set sounds in motion, and then sit back to watch the movements unfold. Using textures, timbre and dynamics as primary elements, his music is continuously shifting, with different layers floating into the foreground while others disappear. This flows like clockwork, “transforming a sequence of instrumental gestures into a wide territory of semi-hostile discontinuity; percussive, droning, intricately colorful, or simply blowing your socks off” (Touching Extremes).
Johannes S. Sistermann studied composition and new music theatre with Mauricio Kagel at the Cologne Musikhochschule, took singing lessons in North India and earned a doctorate in musicology. He creates installations, sonic sculptures, radiophonic radio plays, and electroacoustic performances. In his installations, he investigates resonant everyday materials, overcomes architectural spaces with sounds and acts impulsively from an unknown potential space.
Founded as a not-for-profit organization by artists in 1977, Harvestworks has helped a generation of artists create new works using technology. Our mission is to support the creation and presentation of art works achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies.
