Index (2009) from Siteworks by Gerald Fiebig

The installation was commissioned by the City of Augsburg to commemorate the 550th birthday of early capitalist banker Jakob Fugger, so I chose his initial F as the basic harmonium tone. The installation was exhibited for four hours at the church of St Moritz in Augsburg on 20 June, 2009 and was accompanied by the video installation „Crisis - What Crisis?“ by Eric Zwang-Eriksson (https://vimeo.com/72142288).

The installation is based on two sounds: that of an organ, representing tradition and stability, and that of a “no-input” feedback device, representing the volatile and highly virtual character of today’s financial markets. Both sounds were digitally processed. The numeric parameters used in processing mirror the development of two important stock market indices (DAX and DJ Euro Stoxx 50) between 15 September 2008 (crash of Lehman Brothers) and 6 March 2009 (550th birthday of Jakob Fugger). „Index“ relied heavily on the acoustics of the church: while the four channels of the installation piece (reduced to a stereo mix in this excerpt) were projected from four speakers at high volume, visitors could change their perception by walking around the church.

Tracklist

2.	Index (2009)	30:00

Credits

from Siteworks, released March 21, 2021
Lange Kunstnacht festival, Augsburg, 2009

Thanks are due to Elke Seidel and Michael Grau for commissioning the installation and to Gerhard Zander for his suggestions on its composition.

License

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.