Field Recordings

Field Recordings began with a sound archive rather than a lighting sketch. Signe Lykke had recorded birdsong on the site exactly one year before the festival, at dawn, noon, dusk, and night. Søren translated the recordings into a control score that treated each bulb as a small weather instrument. The installation used 412 incandescent lamps because their warm decay and imperfect response mattered more than efficiency for a temporary work. Lamps were hung on a 30 metre square cable grid, high enough for visitors to pass below and low enough that each source retained the scale of a hand-held object. The control system read amplitude, frequency clusters, and silence from the recordings. It never illustrated birds directly. A sharp call might lift a short diagonal group. A low chorus could thicken the field. Silence was allowed to remain dark. The dimming curve was tuned lamp by lamp so the first visible glow arrived slowly and the final ember lasted longer than the sound that caused it. Power distribution, rain protection, and public safety were the difficult parts. The visual language stayed simple: black cable, porcelain holders, clear lamps, grass, and air. Visitors could enter from all sides. There was no front, no explanation panel in the field, and no demand to understand the mapping. At night the work read as a memory of a place listening to itself.