Extended loudspeaker


Collaboration and technical assistance: Patrick Delges - CRFMW , 2001

Un haut-parleur prolongé

Suspended tin cans are linked to each others through a steel wire net. The length of the wires and the location of the cans are adapted to the dimension of the space. A loudspeaker put into one of the cans sends sounds so that the wires vibrate. Various resonances in the cans result of modulations of the injected sounds in their timbre, pitch, intensity and density. These resonances can be reinjected in the loudspeaker (feedback). The tin cans are suspended so that the listeners may walk in the installation to change their listening points.

  • Set up time: depends on the space, one day minimum
  • Set off time: 3 hours
  • Material needed: ladder, CD player, 2x100W amplifier, 8x220V arrivals for lightnings.

Here are a few examples of this installation :


  • Les Brasseurs

Recorded at gallery "Les Brasseurs", Ars Musica festival, Liège, march 2001

Exhibition running automaticaly during the opening time of the gallery.


Photo:Melanie Désiron


2 microphones direct take by Jean-Marc Sullon and Patrick Delges.


Variation of this installation that i use the most these days is "EXTENDED LOUDSPEAKERS WITHOUT MEMBRANES":

The membrane is reduced to the strict minimum. The purpose of this operation is to have the loudspeaker as silent as possible. But the cylinder of the loudspeaker should still remain suspended around the magnet so that it still vibrates when electric impulses are sent in the loudspeaker.

These vibrations are transmitted through steel wires attached to the cylinder on one side and to a net of tin can resonators on the other end. The tin cans are suspended in the space. So, the original sounds sent in the extended loudspeakers are filtered and reverberated through the installation.
















In this sound example, original sounds are feedbacks and sine waves. It was recorded in Hasselt’s Begijnhof (Z33) in 2001 by Jean-Marc Sullon, Patrick Delges and Benoît De Clerck, mixed by Patrick Delges.


Since 2000, this principle has been experimented in various ways : as an installation working automatically and/or used by me and various musicians in performances.

 - It has been presented in art galleries :

  • Galerie Rachel Haferkamp (Cologne) ;
  • RLBQ (Marseille) ;
  • Le Gymnase (Besançon) ;
  • Centre Culturel d’Albi ;
  • Z33 (Hasselt) ;
  • Surge (Tokyo) ;
  • Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Metz.titre de l'image
    (Picture Shin-ichi Sakai, galerie Surge, Tokyo)

 - In open air :

  • festival “Secret Garden” (B) (Kortrijk, collaboration with Patrick Delges, Erik m and Laura Maes) ;
  • festival “Entre Cours et Jardins” (F) (parc and forest of Barbirey, Dijon and Parc Pommery, Reims ; collaboration with Patrick Delges).

 - In unconventionnal spaces :

  • MEX 10th anniversary (Dortmund, abandoned offices) ;
  • Festival “Les chants mécaniques” 2002 (Lille, ateliers Metalu ; collaboration with Erik m) ;
  • • “Forêt, désir en vue” (Metz, old church; collaboration with Marion Bae, Véronique Albert (dance), Michael Vorfeld (lights) and Kamel Maad (video)) ;
  • Festival “Happy New Ears” 2003 (Courtrai, warehouse; collaboration with Patrick Delges).

 - In concert places :

  • festival Musique Action (Nancy) ;
  • festival Machomet III (Maastricht).

 - Original sounds used so far :

  • sine waves ;
  • feedback ;
  • my own voice ;
  • radio waves ;
  • lights parasites (dimmers, starters) ;
  • sounds of movements (dance) ;
  • sound scape surrounding the installation ;
  • analog synthesizers ;
  • Theremin ;
  • etc.

Here are some other pictures of "Extended loudspeakers without membrane", Gallery Surge, Tokyo 2003


 C.D.: extended loudspeakers. on the label  sub rosa