Max Neuhaus, Evoquer l'auditif, 1995
Transcriptions of descriptions of the featured works 


p. 27
The work was realized outdoors on
the multileveled rooftops of four
adjoining buildings in lower Manhattan.
Sound sources dispersed over the roofs
produced sonorities which intermixed
to form a continuous aural topography
across this urban terrain.

The sounds were generated from
sunlight passing through the blades
of rotating fans. Sound intensity
was governed by light intensity.
The tone color of each sonority was
governed by the angle between sun
and fan blade.

Thus, the sounds beginning gradually
at sunrise, shifted level with the
appearance of cloud or shade, and
slowly changed timbre with the
movement of the sun across the sky.
..disappearing again at sunset.. forming
an aural landscape which reflected the
passage of a day.


p. 29
The space is in the
shape of a squared
spiral. Like many
stairways of this
kind, it has a sense
of labyrinth: a feeling
of dislocation occurs
as one turns its
endless corners and
finds a seemingly
endless succession of
identical places at
each landing.

The work is formed
from a succession of
timbres. Each of these
sound colors has an
element in common with
its neighbor. Their
gradual progression,
leading from landing
to landing, joins two
distant sounds at the
stairways extremes.


p. 31
Pairs of clicks
in overlapping
zones

Gradually shifting
from sharp to hollow
becoming faster
and slower

Conforming to shifts
in weather

Positioned in pathways
between entrances
and exits

Encountered daily

Unmarked

Discovered
or not
by the passerby


p. 35
A large oval
rotunda

Rotating walls
of sound texture
pivoting on the
space's center

Each with its
own speed

Overtaking,
passing,
falling behind
one another

Forming a round
in space
as well as time


p. 37
Two
high
soft
tones

Mixing
at the
upper
threshold
of hearing.

Shaping
a different
kind of air.


p. 39
As one enters the space,
a series of clicks seems
to emanate from the far
wall.

As one approaches them,
they switch their location
and seem to come from the
opposite wall. If one
approaches them there,
they appear again from
the first wall.

This click train is lyrical.
It expands and contracts
in time, gradually getting
slower and faster while
shifting in pitch. Its
loudness contour gives it
an emotional character.

The clicks seems to develop
an infinite line: a phrase
which evolves perpetually.


p. 41
In a clearing
secured by a large oak
near a path

Hollow clicks
appearing on the ground
from nothing

Assumed at first to be
sounds of the woods...

But then disclosing
another sense of place
when their contradictions
are found

by the passerby


p. 43 (text taken from a later version than the one illustrated)
The work is located on a pedestrian island, a triangle formed by Broadway and Seventh Avenue, between Forty-sixth and Forty-fifth Streets in new York City's Times Square.

The aural and visual environment is rich and complex. It includes large billboards, moving neon signs, office buildings, hotels, theaters, porno centers and electronic game emporiums. Its population is equally diverse including tourists, theatergoers, commuters, pimps, shoppers, hucksters and office workers. Most people are in motion, passing through the square. As it is a junction of several pathways across the square, the island is sometimes crossed by a thousand or more people in an hour.

The work is an invisible, unmarked block of sound on the north end of the island. Its sonority, a rich harmonic sound texture resembling the after ring of large bells, is an impossibility within its context. Many who pass through it, however, can dismiss it as an unusual machinery sound from below ground.

For those who find and accept the sound's impossibility, though, the island becomes a different place, separate, but including its surroundings. These people, having no way of knowing that it has been deliberately made, usually claim the work as a place of their own discovering.

Max Neuhaus


p. 45
The work has no sound of its own.

Instead, it was formed by a single tone,
tuned to a point below our sense of sound
but above our sense of vibration.

This unheard pitch generated a terrain
of regions where each audible sound
in the garden was slightly shifted - a
transparent overlay on the garden's
sound landscape - making fine shadings
of hue in the sounds of fountains
conversation and street.


p. 47
Turning
texture
in a
small
room.

Loud,
present.


p. 49
When certain kinds of sounds are very soft
they become something which is sensed
rather than actually heard - a presence
more than a sound.

The two spaces of this work each have
a different sound of this kind. These
two sounds have contrasting natures.

Although the two spaces seem identical
when one first enters, after a few
moments when aural attention has had
a chance to focus... one realizes that
they are, in fact quite different.


p. 51
The room has
unusual proportions:
almost square and
four stories high. It
also offers a means
of exploration in
three dimensions - a
floating stairway
from top to bottom.

The work occupies
the two extremes of
sound spectrum.
The lows are
composed of
resonances of the
space and though
loud, are hidden in
their resemblance to
the sounds of
flowing air. The
highs are soft lines
which penetrate the
space at various
levels.

Together they form
a sonic structure
both delicate and
massive, but which
nevertheless remains
more of a presence
than a sound.

Max Neuhaus

p. 55
A symmetrical room, almost
a cube.

Two quiet low tones
resonate the space
in two different modes
forming large sound shapes
- one cylindrical, the
other, four leafed.

Points of soft high
tones placed throughout
the room at ear width,
mix only in each
listener's mind according
to his head's position.

Five light wooden chairs
with arms. Made in Russia,
which listeners place for
themselves according to
their own inclinations.


p. 57
A high bell
in a dwelling
for plants

Slowly pacing
between
cardinal
directions

Shifting
attention
from quadrant
to quadrant

Accompanied by
a many voiced
chorus
of very soft,
fast,
hollow
drumming.


p. 59
Quite,
fast moving
sound shapes,
interspersed
with silence.

Lines of soft
aural sparks
erecting a
sense of space.


p. 61
A hillside
of woods

Entered
through
inconspicuous
paths.

Sound

Establishing
visions of
other
wooded
life.


p. 65
Many
separate
sources

Each
with a
soft
sharp
sound
of its
own

Fusing
as they
come
together
in the
space

and
dissolving
into
a barely
perceptible
wind.


p. 67
A private room.

An almost inaudible
sound presence,

Appearing only
in darkness,

Illuminating it.


p. 69
Walking
between
moving
water
and
still.

Meeting
a quiet
body of
sound
shifting
on the
still
water
surface.

Enclosed
by
a lucent
sheen.

Max Neuhaus


p. 71
Infinite Lines from Elusive Sources #2

Standing in the center of the space one hears a series of
click-like sounds. Stepping away one encounters places where
there is no sound at all and other where only some of the
clicks can be heard. In the silent places, it seems that the
sound has disappeared from the room altogether, but returning
to the center, reveals it again.

While one is in the center the clicks seem to emanate from
high on the rear or front walls. When moving to other places
the source of sound seems to skip to different points in
the room.

The infinite line in the work's title refers to the time and
pitch patterns of the clicks - they gradually get faster and
slower while rising and falling in pitch - forming an endless
phrase - always developing, never resolving.

Max Neuhaus


p. 73
A line of sound
running down
the length of a
large open space.

Standing inside it
the sound exists,
outside it
it does not.

Unmarked it leaves
expanse intact,

Forming an invisible
place within it,

Wholly separate.


p. 75
As one enters the wooded grove,
one encounters a high, bright sound - -
like a fine aural mist. It permeates
the grove, seeming to come from
nowhere.

At first the sound seems constant, but
if one listens for a few minutes
an inner detail and motion begin to
appear. After a while the sound
sometimes seems to disappear,
becoming embedded in the sound of the
woods. It is an intense but not
unpleasant place to be.

Upon leaving the wood the sound
becomes distant and things slip
back to normal.

Max Neuhaus


p. 77
A large
formal
exhibition
room

with
sounds
of its own.

Reformed

With
quiet
figurative
replications.


p. 79
A foot tunnel
connecting
lake
and woods.

Sound
assures
as it
becomes
louder
and clearer,
while
approaching
the tunnel's
end.

The instant
one emerges
into the open
though,

Is also
the instant
of the sound's
sudden
disappearance.

Exposing
aural
reality.


p. 81
One room
divided
in two.

Both
sides
with
sounds
which
seem
identical

But
open
converse
frames
of mind.


p. 85
The work is set in a grove of
pine trees at the edge of a
fast moving river. A path
running along the river
branches off to climb the
hill of the grove.

The sound texture built
within the trees, although
in contrast with the rushing
sound of the river, forms a
union with it.

Moving between river and grove
shifts the mixture of the two
rebalancing them, but always
leaving each enfolded in the
other.

Max Neuhaus


p. 87
A high
bell sound
appearing
from the
facade of a
closed church
entrance,

Though
almost
plausible
within
this
context,

It provokes
investigation
by the curious,

and discovery
of another
place of
spirit
facing the
bricked up
doorway.


p. 89
The actual space
is a small kitchen.

Inadvertent sounds
or talking in it,
generate sound
reflections which
duplicate those of
a much larger space.

When one is in the
room, these are
usually not noticed.
The ear's sense of
space automatically
adjusts to the eye's
reality and rescales
itself.

Upon leaving the
kitchen, however, one
enters a much larger
space with normal
sound reflections.

Here the ear, with
it's new sense of
scale, reasserts
itself, insisting that
this larger space is
much smaller than it
seems.


p. 91
Three "Similar" Rooms

The three rooms are visually similar
with approximately the same dimensions,
high vaulted ceilings and connecting
doorways.

The work gives each room a different
sound mixture. The sounds, not loud but
quite easy to hear, form textures
which envelop each space, not so much as
something to listen to, more something
one is immersed in.

In passing between the rooms the exact
point of change is elusive - - suddenly
one simply finds oneself in a distinctly
different place.

Max Neuhaus


p. 95
Two passages
bearing
in between
shadow
and daylight,

indentical
in form,

diverging
in spirit.


p. 96
Three to One

The stairway
connects the
centers of three
large, glass-walled
rooms. Each room
has a sound of its
own—three quiet
spaces, colored by
sound.

The three sound
colors mix
differently with
sounds from outside
the spaces. Sound
images from outside
pass through them,
recoloring and
then re exposing
each in its own
way.

Passing up the
stairway for the
first time, the
differences between
floors are subtle
but distinct.
Returning down the
stairs. aural
memories begin to
fuse the dis-
tinctions into one
differentiated
whole.

Max Neuhaus