bradley leonard
Monophony (SIE 2008) (2025)
Hosted by NEBYULA, at repurposed Siemens Facility in Munich
Monophonie (SIE 2008) is a composition that examines the structural friction between artistic innovation and economic utility. The work draws on the specific history of the Siemens Studio for Electronic Music: a facility built to produce corporate promotional sound that was paradoxically inhabited by avant-garde composers critical of the very industrial power structures providing their tools.
Sonified directly from one year of Siemens stock market data, the composition is mapped onto the synthesizer’s specific four-strip punch-tape notation. This score is laser-cut into an unfinished brass plate, creating a loop without a fixed beginning or end. To maintain this continuity, the audio playback initiates at a random point within the cycle, stripping the data of its linear historical narrative.
The sound source is restricted to a single sine wave split into two channels. These signals are processed through contrasting time-stretching technologies and offset by a constant 10 Hz detuning. This precise misalignment forces the two channels into conflict, generating interference patterns and binaural beating that reveal hidden textures within the simple waveform and intervals. The result renders the market data as physical tension in the room.
Documentation: Dirk Tacke