Teufelsberg photographs: Ng Hui Hsien 

großer Lauscher (big Eavesdropper) is a 12-channel spatial sound performance, recorded in a radar dome, at a listening station in Berlin, Germany. Field Station Berlin was built by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States government, during the cold war in the early 1960’s. Five narrators from five different continents recite the story of Echo from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, translated from Latin into English. The sound piece is exhibited in darkness, where space can be visualized via sound, through the protracted echo, created by the architecture of Field Station Berlin.

A reading space adjacent to the immersive installation provides visitors with materials from Miserendino’s investigations that inspired the work. Texts that draw from poetry, myth, religion, science and news are accompanied by a 1975 television broadcast of an interview with Frank Church, a senator who chaired a U.S. Senate committee to investigate the NSA, CIA, FBI and IRS.

In order to curate an experience driven solely by sound, the unique acoustic signature of the main radar dome at the Field Station Berlin called for a playful interpretation and immersive implementation through sound design. The performance was recorded in a multichannel audio format in Berlin by Alyssa Miserendino with technical support from Arup. In close collaboration with the artist the audio was then processed, spatialized, and rendered into the final piece by Arup acoustic designers using the proprietary 3D audio technology of the Arup SoundLab®. Arup concurrently designed a spatial sound system to render the piece and provided acoustic consulting expertise for the exhibition space, optimizing the patron aural experience.  http://www.arup.com

This project is supported by corporate sponsorship from ARUP, & Genelec. Additional support has been provided by an Ella Foundation Pratt Emerging Artists Grant, From the Durham Arts Council, with support from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resource + a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Production team photo taken at Teufelsberg, Berlin (left to right below):
Werner “Zappi” Diermaier
Dirk Dresselhaus
Grant Yarolin
Rehema Chachage
Claudia Martinez Mansell
Ng Hui Hsien
Alyssa Miserendino
Isabela Vecchi Alzuguir

Additional thanks to the preproduction assistance from
Ryan Biziorek & Paul Plamper

[2017 New York City and 2019 Carrboro, USA exhibitions]