Gregory Büttner

*2024 stock* I recorded the sounds for this piece in March 2011 at the "Performance Arts Forum" in France. The PAF is housed in a former convent school, which was built at the end of the 19th Century in the village of St. Erme in Picardy. After the convent school and a hospital during World War I, various temporary uses and a long term of vacancy, the PAF was founded in 2006 as a workplace for artists.

During my three-week stay, I kept sneaking through the 6.400 m2 building: From the attic to the basement, from the small private chapel through the various rooms and artists' studios. I examined the old monastery acoustically, recorded sounds and improvised together "with the house". The role of the house kept moving between sound generator, resonant space and instrument. I recorded breathing wood planks or flickering light switches, explored the different resonant cavities, made metal cabinets resonate or prepared out-of-tune pianos. From the recorded material I worked out a composition, which, organized in chapters, permeates the house acoustically and connects found sounds, digital processing and experimental performance techniques into a "throbbing".