Soundart on public toilets

Short remark on the ethymology: “Closett” &
“exclusive/inclusive” have the same roots:
lat. claudere ‘to close, to shut’.

In-KLO-sion/Exklusion is a sound installation on public and half-public toilets in art and cultural institutions.

The material for the installation is composed of the over-heard, the marginal, the "non-valuable", the casual, the accidental, the contingency, the so called "waste". We also have conversations with passers-by and we think together with them about questions we have in other contexts with theorists and media activists. In this context we are specially engaged with the question of global freedom.

The recordings that were produced in this way are not filterd by narration or manipulativ editing, but used either uncut or for assoziative compositions following musical-mathematical rules. As well ass we develop topics and questions in our actual discussions and bring the discourse to the street, in an inverse way the recordings shall be reintegrated into the ongoing discourse. That is why it is very important to us, that the installation takes place where political, media theoretical and artistic disussions happen.
We would be glad, if the said would be picked up and on this way new discussion strangs would emerge. Within the frame of every single installation we will make recordings, that are than taken back into "lebensweltliche" contexts and are starting point for following conversations with passers-by, who than have the posibility to answer to that etc. etc.

A very important place for us is the Hasenheide, as well as the spontanouse music session taken place there every summer.

We chose the place "public toilet" because of two reasons: On the one hand the toilet is per se exculded and does not belong to the represantative part of the respective art or cultural institution. This gives us the chance to deal in an affirmatively way with being marginal and excluded and to illustrate that even if the material is playing in a cultural place, there will be always something, that will remain exculded and will not be part of.

On the other hand on a usage-level the water-closet appears as a very special place of privacy. Here you don’t have to be aware of how you are seen by others. The reception of soundart is thus less reflexiv. In an art exibition the taste always works beside the aisthesis. The dimension of taste it is not about perceiving a work of art, but about perceiving how you yourself are perceived in the act of perceiving and to position yourself accordingly. This positioning runs idle on a toilet. In this way we expect to address the indivdual on the backstage.

In the installation rooms we stick little notes in a flyer stile with duct tape or something similar to the walls, in order to give some informations about the project. Here our internet adress can be find. The project is open: Everybody, who wants to, can join and participate.

In den Räumen der Installation kleben wir ein Zettelchen im Flugblattstil mit Tesafilm o.ä. an die Wand, um ein paar Informationen über das Projekt zu geben. Hier ist auch unsere Internet-Adresse zu finden. Das Projekt ist offen: Jeder, der möchte, kann sich beteiligen.