Sharpen your acoustic perception with SOUND TREE

To introduce our finalists from Museum Arenacum in the Kleve district of Rindern, we have to travel back in time for a bit: to the year 2021. Three years ago, seven large-format photos by photographer Gerd Ludwig from 1978 were set up in the Düffel as part of the “Art & Climate Change” project. The photos were images of Joseph Beuys in this very landscape. The landscape installations invited people to go on a cycle tour in the summer of 2021 to follow in Beuys’ footsteps and engage with the topic of the environment at the same time.

“Art & Climate Change” was coordinated by Frank Mehring, volunteer director of the Museum Arenacum and part of the team that applied for the Klever Birne 2024 with the SOUND TREE project. He explains that this engagement with Joseph Beuys ultimately gave rise to the idea of emphasising the element of sound more strongly in order to create a contrast to Beuys’ visual work. However, as in the “Art & Climate Change” project, climate change also plays a role in SOUND TREE.

Raising consciousness

“Although we know a lot about climate change, we are slow to change our lives,” says Frank Mehring. Together with the composer and musician Daniel Maurice Ziegler and the two students Antonia Kruse and Elias Margueron, who are sponsored by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and enrolled in our border region, he wants to contribute to raising our awareness in an artful way.

“We are far too often careless when travelling. Daily noises often determine our auditory experience and sometimes lead to our sense of hearing atrophying. However, when I look at the many headphones we put on our heads, we also overstrain our sense of hearing to some extent and alienate ourselves from our immediate living environment,” reflects Frank Mehring.

Perceiving Kleve’s everyday surroundings in a new way

In order to strengthen the resonance of people in Kleve and the border region with their environment, Mehring and his team want to make the SOUND TREES an integral part of everyday life – across borders and as a natural life experience.

A SOUND TREE is a creative combination of a tree, a stone pyramid and a smartphone, which together form a unique “sound tree”. A stone pyramid with a QR tag is placed near a tree. Scanned with a smartphone app, environmental parameters such as seismological, meteorological, solar and geographical information are transformed into a musical soundscape using the GPS code of the respective location.

Daniel Maurice Ziegler: “In this way, we can hear the weather, create resonance and establish a sensual connection to this specific location. For art touches and continues where words stop.” People can use the app to network with each other in order to engage more intensively with all their senses with the area where they live or study – and to get new SOUND TREE projects off the ground.

Connecting people

However, we should not only immerse ourselves in the sound field, but also have the opportunity to share our individual sound experience with others. The aim is to install four SOUND TREES at the beginning: Two at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences on the Kleve and Kamp-Lintfort campuses and one at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen and Wageningen University & Research. “The QR code takes users to a landing page that shows the locations and provides opportunities for dialogue and connection,” explains Frank Mehring.

Preview already possible today

A prototype has been installed at the Arenacum Museum. However, without a QR code, as the sound still has to be programmed. But even without a smartphone, we can still immerse ourselves in a soundscape. Simply put your smartphone to one side, close your eyes and listen to your surroundings.

The team is convinced that the SOUND TREE project is innovative because it connects people with the city of Kleve through music and art. The approach of integrating trees, stone pillars and smartphones to create a multi-sensory urban experience has not yet been realised in Kleve. “This project has the potential to reach citizens and students far beyond the borders of Kleve, for example on other university campuses or in city centres,” says Frank Mehring. The pilot project can promote cooperation between Kleve and Nijmegen and other universities through SOUND TREES and give people stronger roots in our region.