Exhibition 'Spiral of Time – Plaça dels Àngels – MACBA'

Sound is intangible and ephemeral, yet it can be one of the most salient features of the spaces it occupies. Spiral of Time is an in-situ work by the artist, composer and researcher Edwin van der Heide (Hilversum, 1970) which explores sound and its relationship with space and time.

A system of microphones installed on the façade of MACBA’s Centre d'Estudis i Documentació has been recording the ambient sounds in Plaça dels Àngels since 17 July 2024 and will continue to record them until July 2027. The resulting sound archive, organised by time intervals, offers different ways of understanding the idiosyncrasies of the museum’s immediate environs through cyclical patterns that are the outcome of the rhythms of both nature and human activity. The archive is a sound portrait in which the patterns, which are often imperceptible in real time, are expressed through the sounds captured at different times.

Presented in dialogue with recordings of the Amazonian jungle near Manaus, produced in conjunction with the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) and the Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM), the work invites spectators to delve into the artist's long-term work in the quest related to cities’ sound landscapes and experiments in ‘natural radio’, which provide a nuanced understanding of human and nonhuman habitats through vibrations.

The Spiral of Time project explores how listening can fashion the environment, connect different sound zones and regulate the sonorous-spatial reality. Spiral of Time uses an online interface that affords unique possibilities for browsing the recordings at different speeds. Time is visually represented with a spiral that intuitively captures the hours, weeks, months and years.

By choosing this spiral pathway, users can perceive and discover new relationships among sounds and time that are exclusive to the museum setting. 

*Entrance is paid except on the 24th during the Festes de la Mercè.