Do You Hear What I Hear?

Nothing makes a day quite as grand as getting to interact with modern art. And Nacha, Ivanka, and I did just that last Sunday; which made for a marvelous afternoon.

ZKM is an amazing modern art museum (which I have mentioned before in a previous post) and it has recently put up some new exhibits. It's main exhibit is called Sound Art. As the name simply implies, it's a whole bunch of modern art that has something to do with sound. Now I must admit that I found some of the pieces quite strange, but on the whole there were some pretty amazing things to look at, and many that you could interact with. The girls and I had a field day with the interactive ones, probably breaking all sorts of museum etiquette rules haha. But what's art with out a dash of fun?

I've decided that instead of writing a wordy blog describing my favorite pieces, that I would just show you a majority of the pictures I took (more pictures than I usually post in my blog posts) because you will get a better grasp of the epicness. Of course, you won't really be able to experience it like we did considering I can't provide you with the sounds that accompanied the art. And for that I am truly sorry, and offer an invitation to visit me here in Karlsruhe so we can go to ZKM together. Because art should be seen and experienced and shared by all.

T.V.'s with windup toys moving about, and the background music being the Macarena. No joke. We found this room to be creepy, so Nacha was being all funny and pretending to be the girl from 'The Ring.'

Singing wine glasses (those devices do what the tip of your finger usually would do).

Ivanka, Nacha, and I just chilling out barefoot on a vibrating floor. We were actually required to take off our shoes for this piece, which made me feel all giddy. I mean, when do you get to go barefoot in a museum?! Never. Well, except for this time.

This is Ivanka and I walking about my favorite interactive piece. We walked around with those devices in our hands listening to the sounds that were emitted from each light bulb (each had a different one). The more we turned up the volume on our device, the more the all the sounds meshed together. The lower the volume, the clearer we heard each light bulb singly. So neat.

Couldn't figure this one out. But I think it looks pretty.

Me, horrified, standing next to the creepy beehive of microphones emitting sounds that would be right at home in a horror movie.

I have no idea why Nacha is hugging the creepy microphones haha.

Ivanka listening and watching virtual flies get killed. Art at it's finest.

The sun! Not sure what this had to do with sound...

No idea what this technically is, but I think it looks beautiful.

These little guys would move in different directions due to sound vibrations. Neat, right?

The girls and I having a vanity moment in front of a black sheet of metal. For some reason in the picture it doesn't look like a black surface at all... I didn't even use flash!

This was a pretty epic interactive piece. Ivanka and Nacha are yelling into microphones, and I was making crunching the rocks with my feet (off camera). Why? We were making music of course.

"Ooo this looks so cool! I wonder what it does." *pushes button*...

*WAAA BAMMM* "AHHHH OHMYGOD!!!"

No idea why a map of America was in this exhibit, but this is me pointing to where home is, very, very excitedly.

Ivanka and I listening to some sounds on an old school VHS machine.

The main lobby even has some musical art... music notes made out of metal and old speakers.

Close up of old and new speakers emitting a low buzzing noise.

For each main exhibit ZKM does, they have art out front that is visible from the street. This is what they chose for the Sound Art exhibit: a bunch of old and new speakers piled together making the same exact noise. Amazing? Annoying? Pure Genius? Your choice.

Hope you enjoyed this post and got a little sound bite of our afternoon because of it!