Sound Environments for Panoramic Paintings, Illustration, Jerusalem Panorama Altoetting
In 2019, the Shengjing Panorama was opened at the Velaslavasay Panorama. For this new panorama, painted by Li Wu, Yan Yang and Zhou Fuxian from the Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang China, Fehr created a composition, which was spatialized on a 16-channel loudspeaker setup he designed for the circular space.
Depicting the city of Shenyang during the time of the industrialization in a timespan between 1910-30, the 360-degree panoramic painting and the sound composition merge into a fully spatial experience. The composition combines contemporary field recordings – taken in two different locations, the cities of Shenyang and Los Angeles – into a third, virtual place: the Shengjing Panorama. With the artist group of the Velaslavasay Panorama, Moritz Fehr visited the locations for recording and creating sound for the composition. Integrated into the composition are recordings of a musical improvisation on the Sheng, Guzheng and percussion by Virtuose Wu Wei, as well as several archival sources. Fehr composed these elements to form a three-dimensional hybrid of a musical and environmental sound space that can be experienced together with the painting.
Duration: 40 Minutes, Loop.
Further information on the Shenjing Panorama at the Velaslavasay Panorama
For the Jerusalem Panorama in Altötting, Germany, Moritz Fehr has created an immersive, spatial sound installation that was opened to the public in August of 2009. The installation has been specially made for the historic panoramic space and is set up permanently.
The monumental cyclorama Jerusalem Panorama was painted in 1903 by Gebhard Fugel. It is Germany’s sole historic large-scale Panorama-painting (approximately 95 x 12 meters), covering the walls of a space of about 30 meters in diameter.
The combination of a panorama painting with sound seems to be as obvious as much as audible elements are capable of supporting the illusionist effect established by the panoramic contraption. However, in the past, sound and noise have mostly been employed, or experimented within Panorama-related forms such as the Diorama and the Moving Panorama. The idea of this work is to use sound as an independent element and by this exceed the limits of its function as a mere supplementary background noise. It is not intended to illustrate the given visual impression of the Panorama, but to broaden the perception of the illusionistic medium through spatial sound and therefore enhance the immersive experience.
The composition is playing in a cycle of 30 minutes through a array of 16 speakers, especially designed for the space. The different layers of shifting and moving sounds create an artificial soundscape that accentuates the distinct layers of the panoramic space and highlights different sections of the painting.
Duration: 30 Minutes, Loop.
The project was made possible through generous funding by: Streicher & Streicher Foundation, Bavarian Ministry for Science, Research and Art, Kunstfonds Bayern, City of Altötting, Sparkasse Altötting-Mühldorf, Bezirk Oberbayern Kulturfonds Landkreis Altötting.
Moritz Fehr created a spatial sound instlallation for Effulgence of the North, a panoramic presentation painted by Sara Velas. It was exhibited together with the 360-degree painting at the Velaslavasay Panorama in Los Angeles from 2007-2017.
Further information on the The Velaslavasay Panorama
