A Room With A Voice (2023)
Full HD video, sound, 06:44, loop.

Hans asked two cellists, a clarinetist and a violinist to each choose a space in the museum, listen to the sounds that are present, and improvise something that suited the location. As documentation, each musician made a video of their performance, the music piece was written as a score, and the location they played was marked on a floor plan. Afterwards, the scores were sung by a male bass and a female soprano in Hans’s studio.

The voice often can’t sing the same notes as the instruments, so the pieces had to be interpreted. The music was further affected by the space because each location had its own sound. Despite the differences between the instruments and the couches, and between the architecture of the museum and Hans’s studio, this work connects the spaces both physically and mentally. Although creative work is normally developed in the studio and moved to the museum, it’s the opposite case in this piece.
Text published in ‘Incomplete Neighbor’ (2023) for the exhibition ‘Incomplete Neighbor’ (2023) of Hans Demeulenaere & Raffaela Crispino, curated by Tal Bechler for Museum PT, Tel Aviv Israel.

Hans Demeulenaere
Camera & editing by Eva Maria Bouillon.