This installation is the compositional and room-acoustic fusion of an authentic sound situation and abstracted sound layers / virtual spaces. Its foundation is the four-channel sound recording of two games of billiards. The sound space, consisting of the usual sounds of the game (the clicking and rolling of the balls, billiard cue noises, coffeehouse atmosphere, etc.), is acoustically reproduced by four loudspeakers. In the middle of the exhibition space, a white frame indicates the proportions of an imaginary billiard table; suspended over it are three billiard balls – a visual abstraction of the essence of carom billiards. The four-channel sound recording of a billiards game is heard from a platform below the frame. The clicking of the balls thereby functions as a trigger (“sync track”) for additional sound layers, which create, via four more loudspeakers positioned in the room’s corners, a “virtual” sound space folded outward. The acoustic density and temporal structuring of the composition is thus directly connected to the course of the game. P.S.: Dreiband is the German name for three-cushion billiards, a version of carom billiards.


Dreiband (2003)

White-lacquered metal frame, 3 white carom billiard balls, wooden platform, loudspeakers, 8-channel audio system