Achronie/a by Sciss

Achronie came together as an album of experimental audio-visual miniatures. The work was first authored in 2002 as a CD-ROM using Director, then in 2004 a DVD-Video version was released. In 2025, I went back to the sound materials and decided to re-release a freshly mixed version as an audio-only mini-album Achronie/a. The original track order was slightly changed by swapping ‘Euphosphen’ and ‘Tauchen’, and the previously unreleased track ‘Moonwalk’ is included.

Below is the original programme note:

“Achronie—the inability to perceive the phenomenon of passing time—started in 2001 as an experimental audio/video collaboration between Hanns Holger Rutz (music) and Cem Akkan (image). Completed in August 2002, the work consists of twelve short clips and three interludes that explore the interaction between floating and vibrating visual shapes and synchronised sound scapes. While in most cases sound creation followed video, finally a careful balance was found in which the question of stimulus and response or causality arises. The way we look at the images influences the way we hear the noises and vice versa.

More specifically, the clips deal with paradox situations of speed and time perception. A dynamic system in which the recipients can synchronise themselves to the stream and, on a different point on the time line, divorce from it. The moment when speed exceeds a threshold and gets mapped back to a state of calmness.”

sciss.de