Language of Sound and Sound Images Notes on Stephan von Huene’s Lexichaos
D r. M a r v i n A l t n e r
Who has never experienced the ambivalent feelings and thoughts caused by the sight of the dizzying abyss of a mountain valley or the depth of horizon of the sea’s surface? Immanuel Kant described this ambivalence as Angst-Lust (lustful fear) in his analysis of the sublime, as a sense of threat to one’s own existence induced by visual perception, without actually posing a physical threat to the observer.¹ At the Barenboim-Said Akademie’s Pierre Boulez Saal, amidst Stephan von Huene’s Lexichaos, the relationship between work and observer, at first glance, does not appear as an existential questioning of humanity and the world. And yet one basic constant of the aesthetic of the sublime is found here as well: the broadened view of the panorama-like oval of curving wall segments that enclose the observer. The uniform wood panels measuring 100 cm in height and 70 cm in breadth² that are affixed to the walls at regular intervals show black letters on a white background, decreasing in size from top to bottom, but set with irregular spacing and differing font size within the lines. Martin Warnke justly compares the lettering to an“ophthalmological chart,”³ emphasizing the painted letters, their font weights and positioning on the surfaces. We will return to this aspect. First, however, let us recapitulate the position of the subject in an eyesight test. It is a delicate matter: for young people, this may be one of the first moments in life in which they recognize that seeing (which also means recognizing and understanding) are not “natural,” automatic functions. Subjective perception (which is taken for granted) and biophysical functioning of perception are dissociated, thereby becoming problematic. Even later, for example
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