AMSTERDAM.- From 23 November 2018 to 29 April 2019, the Oude Kerk is functioning as a music temple in which everything revolves around a sound-based work of art. The immediate cause of this intervention is the approaching completion of the restoration of the world-famous Vater-Müller organ. It is a long cherished wish of many visitors to be able to play this majestic organ. Their dreams will come true in a sense in the winter of 2019.

Art, Heritage and Music
During their preparatory visits to the Oude Kerk, Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller made sound resonate in the space in different ways. Using voice and organ gave them an impression of the acoustic possibilities of the architecture. The Vater-Müller organ (1742), which was being restored at the time, appealed to them especially. They examined the instrument and will carry out experiments involving playing the instrument and recording this in anticipation of the completion of its restauration in May 2019. Janet Cardiff: ‘The organ in the church inspired us. We thought: Why not make another organ? But of a different type and one that the public could play?’

The questions that are central to the creation of this work revolve around the relationship between art, heritage and music. Can we imagine a music venue that exists outside the media and beyond the stage? A space in which visitors have no designated chair, but rather choose the position from which they listen and look? If the artists have anything to say about it, listeners and spectators will examine and answer this question themselves. During its exhibition, the sound installation will be the centre of the Oude Kerk’s time and space.

Soundtrack for the Monument
During this period, visitors of the Oude Kerk automatically become part of a sound piece to which they, themselves, briefly make a contribution. They enter into a piece that is all-encompassing, with the sound filling the entire space. One might consider it a kind of soundtrack for the monument. [No less than] 25 speakers are connected to a mellotron, a mechanical precursor of the sampler1 that mixes ambient sounds with vocals and sounds from, among other things, the Vater-Müller Organ. The sound appeals to people’s imagination, memory and readiness to surrender. Through the mellotron, visitors will be able to ‘play’ the monumental space and determine the atmosphere and perception of the Oude Kerk.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are internationally renowned installation and sound artists. Their ground-breaking work was the 1995 The Dark Pool, a room full of bric-a-brac that produced sounds and required visitors to interact as they walked by. This set the tone for subsequent pieces that played with the expectations of the visitors through fragmented narratives using various media. Cardiff and Miller represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and have exhibited at Tate Modern, London (UK), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (F), Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte, Turin (IT) and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (S). Their work is part of the international collections of museums the world over.