Temple
During the project conception phase, the question was already raised several times: Who is worshipped in this temple? The answer is simple: no deities, no saints, no heroes, but pure sound – rather meant in the way that nothing distracts from the acoustic perception in the here and now. It shall be a place of repose and reflection – which does not mean that it is quiet. On the contrary: the music has to create calm by virtue of its sonority.

Sound installation
In contrast to a concert, a sound installation is defined, first of all, by the fact that the temporal scope of the program is fundamentally much greater than the length of time the visitors stay. This naturally has consequences for the selection of the contributions as well.
In the concert, the visitors face a focused performance; the sound installation, on the other hand, is aimed at individuals. There is no focus; there are no demagogic reference points, neither real nor illusionistic ones. Accordingly, there is no ‘hot spot’ where the music would be best heard. The listeners share the real space with the sound texture. The space is open around the clock, a temple that you can enter at any time. The sound installation is a museum-like form of musical reception which is possible in this manner due to the availability of digital storage media.

Orchestration
An interpretation in the conventional sense – as well as in the acousmatic sense – is not necessary and not possible. Very necessary, however, is a spatial orchestration in regard to automation. A spatial routing to the loudspeaker setup and a sound level concept is being found for each of the contributions. This is a separate task: spatio-acoustic dramaturgy.

Situation
Temple of Sound is a large-scale project in which the pioneering works of the electroacoustic arts of the last seven decades are presented together with contemporary works in an installation of 20 loudspeakers. An automated process in space and time.

Manifest
Since sound recording has been possible, musicians from all over the world have been creating works in the electronic medium which can be played on loudspeakers in their original form. In contrast to film which became predominant fifty years earlier as a form of media, this form of music creation was taken over by commercial documentarism from the start and therefore has not really been in the light of public perception. The aesthetics of consumer society reduces media music to its iconic conveyability and excludes any independent acoustic reality from loudspeakers. Listening habits degenerate into reflections on stylistic patterns.

This project’s objective is to make original works of electroacoustic music accessible to a broad public and to make it spatially real. A sensual staging confronts the listeners with their astonishment at the audible reality.