On the boundary in between industrial archeology and a modern economy, 'Sweet Spot' converts the scars in a landscape into a charged event.

A small cabin, sound-proofed with a grey felt tapestry, is furnished with a bench and two make-shift speaker-boxes that are suspended from the ceiling and aimed at thin rubber membranes in the walls. It's welcoming the visitor to take place at the bench so the centers of the rubber membranes are at ear-level.

A soundscape had been recorded on the hills of leftover rubble from the coalmines and at sites where the big headframes once stood to get the miners in- and the coal out of the earth. Now, the old sounds vanished; today’s activities provide current ones. But yet, the effect of decades of mining industry in the landscape can't be ignored and still influences the resonating colors of what you hear at present. Latitude, longitude as well as altitude were tracked (by GPS) during the deed of sound gathering.

The seated listener sits in a shifting focus of the audio, as the membranes are being moved by a modulated vacuum and thus, make a parabolic 'lens'. Not unlike the directional behavior of a satellite dish. The vacuum is controlled by the tracked GPS data; this is synced with the soundscape with respect to the elevation of the sound sources.

'Sweet Spot' sound material was recorded at: industrial area 'Julia', Eygelshoven, NATO base / 'Hendrik' Brunssum, park centre Brunssum, 'Poort van Gravenrode', shaft 'Nuland', 'Schutterspark' Brunssum, stairs 'Snowworld' Landgraaf, Vincentius church / 'Emma' / 'Hendrik', 'Oranje Nassau' Zeswegen, DSM Stein, etc.
'Sweet Spot' / 2015 - 2016 / Continium Kerkrade.


3.78 x 2.80 x 2.40 m / wood, rubber, felt, air hoses, modified 280 watt heater air fan, frequency inverter, cv electronics, waveplayer8, Tripath amplifier, Omnes Audio BB3.01 3" full range speaker, bench, metal brackets, grey paint RAL 7047, led spotlights.