Ragnhild May: Aeolian Pavillon
Ragnhild May
Ragnhild May works with sound art, performance, sculpture and installation. Through her work, she explores acoustic phenomena and their impact on the human sensory system and cultural role.
May's approach is playful, experimental and full of humor. She often draws on existing historical theories about music and technological inventions and instruments, where the boundaries between man and machine, work and tools, materiality and idea are blurred. Ragnhild is i.a. known for her work with her characteristic, self-built flute instruments.
Aeolian Pavillon
Aeolian Pavillon is a reinterpretation of the pavilion as an architectural figure, which Ragnhild May in this piece functionally merges with the Aeolus harp which has its origins in Greece, and was particularly widespread during the Romantic period. The resulting structure is both an architectural building and at the same time an instrument, a large sound box that you can stay in.
Ragnhild has been inspired by both speaker and boat construction for the pavilion's shape and aesthetics. Built on the basis of a geometric logic with four wind traps, each of which vibrates a string of different lengths and fundamental frequencies, a sound is created of almost supernatural and ghostly overtones.
The work translates the almost constant wind of Struer harbor into sounds that mix with the area's own soundscape of clattering mast lines and whistling wind in boat houses. The 4 funnels frame the view in different directions and visitors can experience Odden's diverse landscape to the sound of the wind's evocative music.
Ragnhild May performede sit værk It Ended With Silver Baloons til åbningen af Struer Tracks #3.
Video: Mikkel Kaldal