Bernhard Leitner :
Klangstein

The new space and sound installation by Bernhard Leitner situated in the maple grove between the Provincial Library and the Provincial Archives, across from the Festspielhaus and diagonally across from the new Provincial Museum, bears a title both minimalist and lapidary: Klangstein (Sound Stone). Two locations constitute this new work: the one contains a piece of black Swedish granite polished smooth on all sides and standing free amidst the trees. Nine metres away, over at the edge of this small park, stands a five-meter-high column of steel piping with a parabolic dish at the middle of which sits a computer-controlled loudspeaker. The speaker emits a stream of sound into the parabolic dish, and the dish projects this sound onto the stone. Moving around the stone one is met by the sound of rushing water recorded from nature and now reflected by the stone. The resulting aural impact is so intense that one perceives the sound as actually coming from the stone, or perhaps existing within. In this way the acoustic impression arises of flowing water in a limited segment of the maple grove, an impression which combines the senses of sight and sound. With his Klangstein installation (2003) Bernhard Leitner has once again managed to transcend space, body, sight and sound to create a new sensory phenomenon. It is the first time, however, that he has dealt with sound as a stream, as a moving element which in its density creates the impression of a new, concentrated and projective natural experience.
(Carl Aigner)