Listening Glass, by Swiss-Australian artists Rene Christen and Jasper Streit, is an audiovisual instrument that feeds off the sounds from the outside environment.
The installation uses the front window of the gallery as a sound diaphragm, in which the vibrations from outside sounds are picked up and fed into the instrument system. The sounds processed are simulataneously fed back through the glass to the street outside. The incoming sounds also affect the instrument’s visual output, projected onto a screen behind the glass window at night.
In forming part of the interface, the gallery’s metal security grill, protecting the glass window, provided a structure for people to play and create sounds for the instrument to process.
The work pulsates with the collective pulse of the public. Like a DNA donation to the evolution of the entity, affecting the work in such a way that it becomes unique through the interminable interaction specific to its location.