Sound Design Festival Hamamatsu

Takt Project

HAMAMATSU For the 2021 edition of the Sound Design Festival in Hamamatsu, Japan – a member of the UNESCO Cities of Music Network – Takt Project brought to life the edition’s theme: the forms of communication created with sound. To visualize the often unseen vibrations that accompany acoustic transmission – and to maximize the significance of the festival’s physicality – Takt based its design on string telephones.

A spiderweb of coloured strings connected the phones, traversing an arena formed by seven staircases, which doubled as viewing points for central sound performances. By using no wall or floor fixings, Takt ensured its design is highly portable and can be reused in the future – a factor our jury applauded.

Jury member Christian Lungershausen, Beyond Disciplines cofounder and creative director, found poetry in the project’s simplicity, calling it ‘an exhibition to reanimate our archaic senses without using digital tools’. He also appreciated how the scenography connected people physically in a circle, a consideration Nxt Museum cofounder and creative director Natasha Greenhalgh highlighted, too: ‘An incredibly rich and evocative concept that really shows the power and strength of resonating with intrinsic human emotions,’ she said, ‘the power of connection, of the coming together of people and sharing.’ taktproject.com

‘From the staircases to the strings defining the space and mapping out the exhibition – every element elevated the experience of sound and made it visible and almost tangible,’ said jury member Karen El Asmar, architect and interaction designer at Tech.