SOUND BIENNIAL 1999

Copenhagen got new sounds in October 1999.

The familiar sounds of the city where renewed by Danish and international sound artists, sound poets and sound makers.

The SSSHHHHH sound biennial 1999 was the first big gathering of the sound art stage in Copenhagen, and a manifestation of an art form that's evolving rapidly both nationally and internationally.

The SSSHHHHH biennial presented sound projects of all kinds: from police cars to poets, from Internet to steel wire, from toilet flush to shopping mall, from the silence of breath and video guitars to the sound hell of speaker feedback.

The Sound biennial of SSSHHHHH also constituted an official recognition of the increasingly important scene of sound art and sound artists that work it. We thank The Development Foundation of the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs, The Foundation of Culture of Copenhagen, and the State Foundation of Art of Denmark for their kind support, which made SSSHHHHH 1999 possible. The originator of the SSSHHHHH project was Jørgen Teller.

Get the 1999 ssshhhhh catalogue (2,4 Mb PDF - requires Acrobat Reader).

Get the sounds for the ssshhhhh catalogue

For the second time ever the Ssshhhhh Sound Biennial where held on the 12th of October 2001. The four initiators behind the biennial is William Louis Sørensen, Jørgen Teller, Jakob Riis and Jakob Brandt. They invited both Danish and international sound artists, a.o. the exciting artists Kaffe Matthews and Kim Cascone.

Sound art is - for several artistic reasons - developing into a multitude of directions. One common trend is noticeable though: not only is the technology a predominant element in the new music, but so is the perceptive element to a high degree. Today there's a great openness towards new levels of sound experience within already existent media and art forms.

In the everyday we are surrounded with installations, producing sound on all levels: the kitchen, the car, the train, the workplace, streets, "functions", "consume", "ambiance", "message".

Ssshhhhh...enters the matrix of these everyday installations and creates artwork, that not alone excites the senses, but also shakes the conventional expectations completely of course.