Composition excerpts for 'It's Lonely in the Metaverse' exhibited at Rapla County Centre for Contemporary Art

It's Lonely in the Metaverse (Excerpts)

4 audio excerpts from the work Exit (2023)

Voice actors: Loveday Smith, Kaspar Velberg

Reenactments of personal phone calls I have recorded over the summer of 2023 by voice actors and recordings of waiting on the line.

Excerpts From Exit (2023)

Hobusepea Gallery, Tallinn
 
Sound installation, 4 channel audio, duration: 10min 20sec
 
Sound figure produced with vocal recordings. Stuff is a piece that aims to produce a sculpture-like form with sound that is introduced into the architecture of the gallery Hobusepea in Tallinn. Part 1 is the upper part of the two part installation. Vocals by Stacey Koosel, Hannah Harkes & Egle Ehtjen.
 
Exhibited in the solo exhibition "Stuff" 2015

Excerpts of Stuff Part 1

Original title of the work: My Eyes Are Going Crazy, I Am Trying to See Something but There’s Nothing Here

Sound installation, stereo audio, actual duration: 13min 36sec

Excerpts of My Eyes Are Going Crazy, I Am Trying to See Something but There’s Nothing Here

About the work:

SSSSIV: Coil

Sound installation, 8 channel audio, 8 copper wire coils, steel frame.
Duration of the automated composition: 26 minutes 15 seconds (continous playback)
There are no prerecorded sounds in the work, everything is based on live feedback.


SSSS is a sound artist duo from Tallinn, Estonia. The artists, Sten Saarits and Sven Sosnitski, experiment with soundscapes and sonic objects to find challenging acoustic experiences for listeners. Previously SSSS has worked with site specific sounds by recording all sorts of audible phenomenons to produce new soundscape installations.

In this project SSSS will not use recorded sounds from the site or space but instead, the sounds that the audio devices themselves emit. By using custom built copper wire coils, the artists turn electromagnetic fields of the speakers audible and manipulate the sound environment of the exhibiting room with those tones in an automated live composition. The authors describe the piece as a concentric body, which all starts from the process inside the speaker, where an electrically amplified coil will start to move the domeshaped membrane. The composition relies partly on the room resonance as a part of the sound experience. The authors mention the best acoustic experience comes from an empty room, where the sound is free to resonate.

Support for this exhibition came from the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Koidu Seltsimaja.

SSSS Live At Supersonicum

t1RjQjDbPQ9Syp97DHFyzvgZhcjgLTMwhaq (2019)
 Live performance, borrowed amateur cryptocurrency mining station, coil-antenna microphones, 2 mid range speakers, 4 horn speakers
 Audio recording on location (listening with headphones is recommended)

T1RjQjDbPQ9Syp97DHFyzvgZhcjgLTMwhaq (2019)

Composition for 5x4 Sound Space (2017
 9-channel sound installation, duration: 4min  
Audio recording on location (listening with headphones is recommended)

5x4 Sound Space concept:

In 2017 Liisi Küla, Aivar Tõnso, Roman-Sten Tõnissoo, Martin Rästa and Sten Saarits developed a sound space setup consisting of 8 mid-range speakers and one low end speaker to provide a immersive sound listening experience. The listeners were also handed blindfolds to keep from visual stimulation. 5 authors produced individual 4 minute pieces to be presented on this system. This composition has been exhibited multiple times with other pieces as well as independently, in venues such as UIT Festival, Üle Heli Festival and MIMstuudio.

5X4 at UIT Festival, St. Mary's Church in Tartu, Estonia (2017)

( This is an audio excerpt of the 12 channel studio mix compressed into stereo format)
Audio-visual composition, 12 channel sound, RGB lights
Duration: 3min. Presented daily in 2018.

The first sound and light installation of the reconstructed Tartu arch bridge. The concept for the sound work was not to introduce whole new sounds into the environment, but rather, we used some reoccurring sounds already present in the environment and synthesized these to reflect the surroundings. Much like the surface of the flowing water in the river reflects light of this river city.
The Carillon of Tartu Town Hall, hosting 34 bells, plays chimes 5 times a day. The independent compositions by 5 authors for the Tartu Arch Bridge were timed to play exactly after the Town Hall chimes would stop, to serve as a reverberation or reflection – like a bridge, connecting two sites.

Co-authors: Liisi Kula, Martin Rästa, Roman-Sten Tõnissoo, Aivar Tõnso. Technical concept: Tipriit Valgusdisain, Audio System Design, Elinvar.

Awards: 2018 Estonian Landscape Architects’ Union’s awards. Special prize for sound art and space synthesis.

Sound composition for Tartu Arch Bridge / 2018

An Excerpt of audio recording on location  of the 6 channel sound installation (evolving loop)
Location: Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia

Site-specific sound installation “Foreground Horizon” is an acoustic companion for the picturesque view from the terrace of the newly opened EAA building over the Kalamaja region and the horizon over the sea. The multichannel sound environment aims to establish socio-geographic relations within the new building by using sound design as a mediator. The abstract meditative sounds focus on being present, the collective state of mind and human relations to surroundings. “The listener who enters sound installations is made to inhabit the visual space bodily” (Salomé Voegelin).

Special thanks to: Solveig Jahnke and the EAA

Foreground Horizon with Roman-Sten Tõnissoo / 2018

Sound installation, 4 horn speakers, T-bar stands

"Lesser Part of the Equation" consists of night-time sound recordings from petrol stations in Tallinn. The recordings are composed in a dreamlike manner in order to paint a picture of the general mood during these repetitive tasks on quiet late hours. What we hear are bank cards inserted into automatic payment machines, various buttons being pressed, petrol pumps going, tires getting inflated, engines running. The usual and insignificant.

Exhibited in: "Black Gold" in collaboration with Edgar Tedresaar (Tallinn City Gallery) 2019 / Curated by Siim Preiman  Audio excerpts of the 4 channel studio mix compressed into stereo format for portfolio.

Lesser Part of the Equation / 2019

Sten Saarits (b. 1987) is an installation artist from Tallinn, Estonia. Currently living in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He has studied in the Estonian Academy of Arts and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. His work revolves around non-material propositions that in relation to the present viewers can bring perceivable phenomenon into existence. He studies how and why we interact with our surroundings the way we do - and how alterations in the chain of events can actually produce the same results as the unaltered.

Sten Saarits

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