The Musical Marble Run: The Sound Snake
Erste Klangebene
Elisabeth Flunger

In the capital of a beautiful and prosperous country with happy people stands a legendary tower called Klangturm, where sometimes strange and eerie noises can be heard. There is a mysterious room in it that no human soul has been allowed to enter for many years. It’s raining in, dirty puddles are forming on the floor, and in addition to all worries, a shy animal has settled inside:

The Sound Snake

The sound snake lives on the first floor of the Klangturm and lets all kinds of balls slither down. It was hatched by the sun from one of the large eggs that are stuck in the tower.

The sound snake is a laid-back animal improvisation machine. Marbles, spheres, balls keep rolling down its slanted surface, hitting metal objects – splinters of the egg it hatched from. Most marble runs have a perfect run, but the sound snake doesn’t insist on determining the paths and ensuring that the marbles arrive at the end of the track. It doesn’t want to control, but to play and have fun. Some marbles bump into a lot of metal objects and make loads of noise. Others roll through silently, but then they crash into something further down.

For the first time the sound snake can be approached by a larger group of visitors. The audience can play with it, and the experienced sound snake expert Elisabeth Flunger will provide an in-depth presentation on both evenings.

The transportable marble run was realized with funding from the City of Vienna and with the support of WienModern and was partially remodeled for the Klangturm.

Drehmomentmal - Inertia I,II,III
Erste Klangkugel
Christine Schörkhuber

„Inertia is the tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion, and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes its speed or direction to change. […] Most inertial movements on earth are gradually slowed down by friction until the object comes to a standstill.“ *
*wikipedia.org/wiki/Interia

For a short period of time a hemisphere is set in rotation by a rotor. This triggers the movement of a ball inside, that slows down with a delay and finally comes to a standstill. Three objects with the same functional principle contain balls of different masses. Therefor the forces acting on them lead to different sequences. By accelerating and rolling, the objects evoke subtle and equally striking sounds with a specific rolling rhythm.

In this work, Christine Schörkhuber is refering to matter as a phenomena and examines a basic physical law. An everyday circumstance, familiar to everyone and unescapable, playfully becomes in the focus of attention for a moment.

cycloop
Zweite Klangkugel
Thomas Nagl

cycloop is a sound installation in which a turntable is repurposed as the source of sound control, acting as a trigger and central control element for various sound generators. The concept builds upon the idea of ‘Locked Grooves,’ which are sound loops realized by connecting the end and beginning of a vinyl record groove. However, in the case of cycloop, no pre-pressed sound material is played back from the record – instead, elements on the turntable stimulate sounds with each rotation. This results in a mantric ‚endless‘ loop that still allows for variations and modulations in sound.