2x540 kHz
sound installation

Mika Vainio and LAb[au]
year:2009

about:
The installation is a collaboration in between Mika Vainio and LAb[au]. This sonic installation is constituted of six vintage tube-radios illuminated beneath by the wood columns they are placed upon.

'The result is touching; it seems the radios communicate with each other. Or better: with ceacking hum they seem to take a last breath. At the same time the installation looks stringent and minimal: placed on white, bright enlightened pedestals the soundobjects from the past receive the statute of a sculpture.' _ Ive Stevenheydens

Two looping compositions of different length (18:17 & 15:57 minutes) are sent through radio transmitters and played on 540 kHz. 2x540mHz's soundscape is based on the temporal shift and spatial distribution of both compositions. The compositions are not only constituted of the typical hum and tuning known from radio's aural landscape, but also reveals the beauty of their hidden micro-sonorities.

'Mika Vainio's work is not so much about structure or formal reductionism per se, as many of his fellow artists and musicians have been doing over the same span of years: rather, it has to do with the aura of structure, with the halo around rhythm, and the effects of sound as it erodes the space, physical and mental, around it, melts within it, hits and scratches it or softly enwraps it.' _ Daniela Cascella

'2x540mHz' is a production of MediaRuimte, LAb[au]'s gallery for electronic arts in downtown Brussels.