Staalplaat Soundsystem

Staalplaat Soundsystem

Staalplaat Soundsystem, featuring Dutchman Geert-Jan Hobijn, is a group of designers and builders of artistic sound installations, based in Berlin. The installations are made with simple techniques that don't hide the underlying constructions. It isn't the technology that is important to them, but the idea behind the construction. The Staalplaat ...
Full biography

Members

Geert-Jan Hobijn   elektronica
Carlo Crovato   elektronica
Carsten Stabenow   elektronica

Biography Staalplaat Soundsystem

Staalplaat Soundsystem, featuring Dutchman Geert-Jan Hobijn, is a group of designers and builders of artistic sound installations, based in Berlin. The installations are made with simple techniques that don't hide the underlying constructions. It isn't the technology that is important to them, but the idea behind the construction. The Staalplaat Soundsystem installations are on show at international multimedia festivals, art events and exhibitions.

1980 - 1999

Geert-Jan Hobijn is one of the founders of Staalplaat, an internationally renowned shop in Amsterdam and later also in Berlin, for all forms of experimental music. In the early days the audio cassette is the principal recording medium to spread the music, until the rise of the compact disc in the second half of the eighties. The Dutch Staalplaat branch starts in the Amsterdam Spuistraat, moving to the Staalstraat in the same city, and eventually to the Staalkade where the business remains in operation until the summer 2004.

2000 - 2002

Having sold and distributed other people's music for twenty years, Geert-Jan Hobijn starts making and spreading his own work under the name Staalplaat Soundsystem, together with Carlo Crovato and Carsten Stabenow. They build various mechanical orchestras, making use of consumer electronics. The project Sweet Sissy And The Ballroom Hiss (shown at the 2002 Ghent Vooruit Geluid Festival), for instance, consists of twelve floor polishers. Titles like Composition For 8 Refrigerators (at a multimedia festival in Stralsund, Germany) and Composition For 104 Washing Machines speak for themselves.

2003 - 2005

The composition Avantilator is performed in Haarlem and Helsinki (2004) by 100 electric office fans. After a fiery performance with The Flaming Vacuum Cleaners in Stralsund (August 2002) Staalplaat Soundsystem is featured at Kling Klang festival in France in October 2002 with Composition For 60 Vacuum Cleaners. The installation Yokomono is described by the makers as the Staalplaat Mono Erosive Surround Sound Installation. Yokomono consists of ten so-called vinyl killers, a kind of toy cars with a record playing stylus, with which the cars drive in LP grooves. The sound is amplified with the help of radios and fed into a mixer. Since vinyl killers operate on batteries, the number of revolutions is unstable, and the records are played increasingly slower over the course of the concert. The running-out of the batteries also affects the radio reception. The instability of the techniques used makes the performances unpredictable and unique experiences every time. The records on which the vinyl killers are used contain so-called locked grooves (vinyl grooves that bite their own tail, so to speak) custom made by Staalplaat Soundsystem with international contributions by Freiband, Jim O'Rourke, Massimo, Pimmon, Rechenzentrum and Radboud Mens. Yokomono appears at the Den Bosch Earational festival and the album of the same name is released on transparent red vinyl. Floating Islands, made in collaboration with Erwin Stache for the opening of the new building of the Dutch embassy in Berlin, is a large sound and light installation on the river Spree, featuring fifty small floating 'sound islands' consisting of light, plastic bottles and fifty vacuum cleaners. Floating Islands is also on show in Venlo (August 2004), Stralsund (September 2004) and Kortrijk (September/October 2005). Staalplaat Soundsystem appears at the Osnabrück European Media Art Festival with the interactive installation Sale Away, in which visitors are able to influence the mechanical orchestra by means of their cell phone. The orchestra consists of vacuum cleaners playing flutes, an organ, kitchen mixers, fans, toy trains with a radio, dancing tumble dryers and humming fridges. Sale Away is also on show at the Groningen Tschumipaviljoen (2004). At the Polderlicht festival at the Amsterdam Polderweg area (October 2005) Staalplaat Soundsystem is represented by the Balkenwald installation, long rows of vibrating tables in the auditorium of the Oost/Watergraafsmeer Montessori school.

2006

In January Staalplaat Soundsystem gives a workshop instrument building at the Stuttgarter Filmwinter festival, followed by concert with The Young Stuttgart Philharmechanic Youth Orchestra. Staalplaat Soundsystem performs The Ultrasound Of Therapy at the Nantes I.D.E.A.L. festival (April), at the Cairo Townhouse Gallery Of Contemporary Art (May) and at the Manchester Expo festival (June). In June Yokomono receives an honorable mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2006 (International Competition For Cyber Arts). In August Staalplaat Soundsystem and BMB con (Brit Justin Bennett and Dutchmen Wikke 't Hooft and Roelf Toxopeus) create a 'holophonic sound image' under the name Architon at the 2006 Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival at the Kiel Kunsthalle.

Discography Staalplaat Soundsystem

In the discography you will find all recordings that have been released listed chronologically. We restrict ourselves to the title, the type of audio, year of publication or recording, label, list of guest musicians, plus any comments on the issue.

Photos Staalplaat Soundsystem

No audio- or video material is yet available.
Add audio or video