Prelude: Anne Pfeifer

Fotos: Marco Einfeldt

About the exhibition

In her kinetic sound installations Anne Pfeifer explores questions about the processes of life and its transient nature. Her installation Ceremony (2015) consists of nine wooden cubes arranged on the wall, each having the dimension of a human torso. A knocking and hammering sound coming from within them causes what at first seem like rigidly motionless cubes to tremble, allowing a rhythm to develop.

This rhythm gives the wooden boxes a heartbeat. They become alive and seem to communicate with one another—correspondence with the etymology of the word “communicate”: “share, relate, interact, connect.” Something new arises from the interplay of the cubes. They join together into a large, pulsating whole. The knocking sound ends as suddenly as it began, and the vibrations of the cubes dies out until the installation come to a complete standstill.

Using a pared-down formal vocabulary, Pfeifer intelligently combines sound and motion with the help of electronic motors. The minimal wooden cubes seem to hover on the wall by their own accord, and they initially show no sign of their potential. When movement sets in the objects take on a new temporal dimension. The viewer usually pauses, speechless, utterly unprepared, and enthralled by the energetic hammering and knocking coming from within the boxes.

(Katharina Schwinn)

In my artwork I wish to explore life processes—in particular the physiological, psychological, and social aspects of our existence are what interest me most. Through the media of drawing, sound, and video I attempt to describe and capture the essence of being alive.

Sound—tone, or what is best described with the word “music,” is able to touch virtually all people throughout the world. The neurologist Oliver Sacks calls it musicophilia, the love of music, which seems to be innate to humankind. Even as a fetus the human being is surrounded by a world made out of tones, including the pulse, heartbeat, and breathing of the mother, and it is able to perceive this already from the seventeenth or nineteenth week, before it has developed an ability to see.

The sound of music not only impacts acoustic perception and emotions. There is also a third component: movement. Music can inspire movement. We suddenly feel the desire to dance, or during a difficult, arduous hike, simple by recalling a certain rhythm we are able to carry on more easily. In the same way, fast, loud music can help us hold out for another round when we are jogging. A beat can be a real activator, which is particularly evident in music therapy.

(Anne Pfeifer)

About the artist Anne Pfeifer

Anne Pfeifer
was born in 1987 in Lindenfels, lives and works in Munich
since 2012 studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich
2008-2012 Study of Visual Communication, Pforzheim University
www.annepfeifer.com