High on Distortion, Low on Reception

"Navigating the spectrum between loud and soft, the perceptible and the repressed, the group exhibition *High on Distortion, Low on Reception* explores the noises and sounds of our present - overlaid with distortion, lost in resonance.

Sounds that vibrate through bodies as sound waves, overlapping and echoing. Sounds that inscribe themselves as sonic worlds into social and cultural spaces, or distort and fade away in ecological and political environments. Both poetically and analytically, the artistic works explore the potential of sound as a multifaceted medium - beyond aesthetic categories or semantic meanings.

High on Distortion, Low on Reception brings together works that delve into the hidden, unsettling, and threatening realities of our present: the rumbling of fracking in the oceans, the silence of insects, the hum of invisible electromagnetic fields, or sound phenomena as invisible forces of political action. The exhibition is an invitation to focus attention on hearing and to relate what is heard to its surroundings. The artistic works approach sound not only as an ecological or political articulation, but also as an affective one: as a medium in which feelings and moods condense and become sensually perceptible. Sound shifts perception and generates images, experiences, and memories that only manifest themselves in the process of listening.

High on Distortion, Low on Reception – a collaboration between kex—kunsthalle exnergasse and the Klima Biennale Wien.

Supported by the Otto Mauer Fund