‘RATS - Secret Soundscapes Of The City’, Munchmuseet on the Move, nyMusikk, Ultima Festival, multichannel public sound installation and seminar, Oslo, 6 September - 14 October 2017


Parallel to the world of people is another bustling society – the world of rats. Some of their communication with each other cannot be registered by human ears, located in an ultrasound frequency range – over 20000 Hz.

A stone’s throw from the white-marbled Opera house, and based on the hypothesis that rats serenade one another with love songs, Jana Winderen will record the ultrasonic landscape of Bjørvika and slow the sound down to human hearing levels. Based on her fieldwork and findings, she will create a new multichannel composition for Munchmuseet on the Move 2017 with spatial audio software by Tony Myatt (University of Surrey). The new, multi-channel sound piece will be installed at the mouth of Akerselva, where the river meets the sea in this rapidly developing district of Oslo. It opens in early September 2017.

Jana Winderen’s project is a collaboration between Munchmuseet on the Move and nyMusikk, curated by Natalie Hope O’Donnell and Anne Hilde Neset.

Find more information as the project develops here soon.

About Munchmuseet on the Move: munchmuseet.no
Munchmuseet on the Move (2016–2019) is an off-site curatorial project that continues and develops the work of the Stenersen Museum in Vika (1994–2015), now part of the Munch Museum. Munchmuseet on the Move includes a series of contemporary art commissions, shown in the area between the current Munch Museum at Tøyen and the new museum, opening in 2020. The aim of the contemporary art programme is to establish relationships with the neighbourhoods the Munch Museum will be moving through on its one-mile journey down to the waterfront of Bjørvika, including collaborations with the existing art scene in the area.

About nyMusikk: nymusikk.no

nyMusikk is located in Platou’s gate in Oslo and is Norway’s centre for new music and sound art with over 75 years experience in commissioning, producing, curating and presenting new music and sound-based work. Through live music, screenings, installations, readings and lectures nyMusikk organises events exploring sound and music’s relationship with other art forms such as performance, film, literature and visual art. Aside from extensive international and national institutional and curatorial collaborations, two annual festivals are at the core of nyMusikk’s programme: the Only Connect Festival of Sound, a themed festival for adventurous music and art taking place across Oslo; and Off The Page Oslo, a festival devoted to music criticism and audio culture.

Jana Winderen’s project includes the seminar, Sounds of the City, held on 22 September at the Munch Museum.

Find information here: nymusikk.no