BETWEEN | YOU | AND | ME is a wall of sound and light.
Like any other wall, it defines an architectural space.
Given its ephemeral, dynamic media - ultrasound and beams of light - the wall can be perceived only when the visitor comes close and interacts with it. Two thin membranes of light form a visible frame filled with sound. Multichannel, extremely vectored hypersonic speakers render audible various textures of broken glass: a sound architecture within the wall, comprised of juxtaposed single sound beams, whose constellation changes depending on the visitor’s position. Observed from a distance, the wall fades away: clear transparency and only faintly resonant tones attest to its non-existence.

What is between you and me? When does something arise between you and me?
Unlike walls of stone or concrete and intangible barriers of the social, national or political variety, the boundary in this installation can be overcome, stepped through or blithely penetrated, even.

The installation invites the visitor to play with seemingly two-dimensional membranes of light, to transgress them with his whole body or its single parts, to observe his body being dissected by light, immersed in the walls, and thereby to perceive it as discrete from other bodies.

Acoustically, the wall consists of glass, all the sound material was recorded by Anke Eckardt herself. With an axe she systematically cut the complete stock of glasses from a former restaurant as well as window glass, mirrors and Christmas tree balls. Using three directional microphones she recorded the acoustically differing moments of breaking, fall and impact of the glas on the ground. In this manner the textures and single events of the subtlile and rich six channel composition are all based on the intermingling sound of countless glass shards. The resulting wall of glass triggers associations with commonplace interface devices such as windows and doors, which function as vehicles of vision and passage. Crashing, shattered and stratified, this interface is not one to take a backseat but imposes itself rather, as a palpable sonic presence in time. Nonetheless, the entire sonic architecture comes to life acoustically, only when the visitor moves between its single beams of sound.

To shape sound literally, as sculpture, was the inspiration behind Anke Eckardt’s installation. To this end, she uses hypersonic speakers to fill a frame generated by light with vibrant sound textures that are faintly audible at a distance yet unfold their full presence only when one steps into the wall.
The technology underpinning hypersonic speakers, which modulates the ultimate audible useful signal to an extremely vectored ultrasonic frequency of c. 100 kHz, was developed originally by the military for the purpose of psychological warfare. The speakers’ extremely vectored output – namely at a radiation angle of three degrees – is compared often to a pocket lamp’s light cone. With the aid of hypersonic speakers it is possible, even over a considerable distance, to expose target individuals or small groups of people to an onslaught of sound. Prolonged exposure to these Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) can cause nausea, severe headaches and disorientation yet they are considered still as non-lethal weapons. Both the military and the police deploy hypersonic speakers internationally as a means of crowd control: verbal warnings or piercing, high-pitched tones are directed at demonstrators, for example, as was the case, inter alia, at demonstrations in Senegal in February 2012 or at the Anti-G20 protests in Pittsburgh in 2009. A police officer quoted by The Washington Times said, ‘[An LRAD] is designed to get people to do what police want. It makes them uncomfortable but does not hurt them’.

Anke Eckardt in her installation embeds extremely vectored speakers in a contrary context with a different meaning. The point here is not to maintain borders and the established order but to focus instead on the playful, fluid potential and permeability of a wall made for sensuous experience. The work is suggestive; it invites an allegorical reading.

Concept/Realisation: Anke Eckardt
Composition: Anke Eckardt & Henry Koch
Programming: Yvan Volochine
Technical Support: Zolle & Henry Koch
Thanks to: Graduate School for the Arts and Scienes at the UdK Berlin, Peter Votava, Douglas Henderson