Bill Fontana: Silent Echoes | Dachstein

Bill Fontana: Silent Echoes | Dachstein
Opening & Artist Talk: 06.09.2024, 18h
07.09. – 27.10.2024, TONSPUR_passage

Live sound installation between Notre Dame Cathedral and the Dachstein ice caves at the MuseumsQuartier.

In 2019, Notre-Dame, the "soul of Paris" and a symbol of European culture, burnt down. The bells are spared, but fall silent for years. They quietly "listen" to the hustle and bustle of the city and the sounds of the construction site - until they ring out again in 2024 to mark the reopening of the cathedral. The American sound artist Bill Fontana makes the bells audible using vibration sensors, transmits the sounds into the ice caves on the Dachstein and mirrors them as if in a duet with the sounds of the melting glacier - an impressive artistic statement on climate change and the fragility of culture. This site-specific duet forms the basis for a "Sound Bridge" that will be broadcast live to MuseumsQuartier and other exhibition venues in Europe and beyond.

Curator: Wolfgang Schlag
Co-curator: Peter Brugger

A project of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024 in cooperation with IRCAM, OÖ KulturEXPO Anton Bruckner 2024, Ars Electronica Festival, Goiserer Musiktage, Kunsthaus Graz and MuseumsQuartier Wien.
With the support of: Institut français d'Autriche

Bill Fontana (born April 25, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American sound artist who studied philosophy at John Carroll University and the New School in New York City and music at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Bill Fontana has been using sound as a sculptural medium since the late 1960s. Since 1976 he has called his works sound sculptures.
Metropolis Cologne (60 min), Metropolis Stockholm (60 min) and Satellite Earbridge/Soundbridge Cologne San Francisco (60 min) are sound portraits of major cities produced by WDR. He has created over 50 sound sculptures and 20 radio sculptures, some of them intercontinental. Bill Fontana's sound sculptures have been installed in many places: New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, Alaska, Berlin, Cologne, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Thailand, Australia and Japan.
Since the 1990s, Fontana has been using airborne sound transducers (microphones), liquid sound transducers (hydrophones) and acceleration sensors for his works.

Photo: Bill Fontana with the bell Emanuelle © Luca Bagnoli