Hasta La Ideas

We’ve posted about both Nils Völker and Zimoun in the past, I’ve only come to appreciate the parallels between their work when we received a couple e-mails—one from each studio—in close succession.

Each artist specializes in partition- or room-sized sonic sculptures, and while each has his own approach and intent, I’m seeing a strong affinity between their overall projects and the thematic content—namely, emulating the natural world through cloyingly simple artificial means.

The muted aesthetic is, of course, complemented by an essential auditory aspect that is meant to induce a Zen-like immersion in each sculpture.

Völker takes a distinct abstract-organic approach, perhaps best demonstrated in his last work, “Thirty Six,” in which the content is largely dictated by the programming. As in the previous piece, “Forty Eight” is characterized by the cyclic inflation of the individual balloons, which simulates respiration though a short sequence of biorhythmic activity.

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