photos: Estate Stephan von Huene, ZKM, Karlsruhe
Glass Pipes
Glass Pipes
1974/76
S 1974–1
two pieces, glass, metal, wood box,
fan, mechanics, glass housing
each 150 x 30 x 30 cm
Petra von Huene, Hamburg
(For technical reasons, the work can no longer be reconstructed.)
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Hessischer Rundfunk 1983
Gottfried Sello (© HR 83)
1:04 min
“My sculpture Glass Pipes parallels the concerns of Leo Tolstoy in his story of ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ and also the experience of Edvard Munch in his painting ‘The Scream’. Glass Pipes is a musical version of just such a scream.”
“Glass Pipes consists of two glass tubes, of equal length, which I constructed to play like organ pipes. In cross section the tubes form an ‘O’. Seen in length they form an extended ‘O’ or ‘OOOOOO’. […] The two glass pipes play simultaneously, sometimes screaming, sometimes growling, sometimes humming, and sometimes just breathing. The acoustic activity of combination sounds produces a variety of textures, densities, and spatial dimensions within the sound.
The transparency of the pipes is not arbitrary but indicates the sculptural direction toward nothing. The more perfectly we can see-through (be enlightened) the less our vision is obstructed. Following this orientation, to see everything is then to see nothing.”
(S. v. H., The Glass Pipe Enterprise 1976/1987/1993, in: exhib. cat. Stephan von Huene: Tune the World. Die Retrospektive, Ostfildern 2002, p. 229/231)
