1993secretpublic
secret public / public secret, 1993
Permanent work / commissioned by the City of Biel-Bienne for Burgplatz and Rosiusplatz in Biel-Bienne.
Chiarenza & Hauser composed an audio installation for the redeveloped and traffic-free Burgplatz in Biel’s old city center. In order to frame this space where nothing happens, they installed on the surrounding houses two loudspeakers which, 7 minutes before noon, daily intone the exhortation: “À table!”, “Ässe!” (Dinner is ready). For reasons of symmetry, the audio installation is also played at the Rosiusplatz opposite. The public was not initiated, so that secret public can be discovered or overlooked.
Permanent installation: 7 audio systems with 14 voices (2 voices of a woman, a man or a child per day: 1 in French, 1 in Swiss German).
(Excerpt from a text by Susann Wintsch, in: we save what you give, monograph on RELAX, A project by edition fink through Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2006)
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