The ultrasound of therapy, by Dutch sound artists Staalplaat Soundsytem, is an installation consisting of 7 individual sound therapies.
The sound therapy differs in time and treatment, each patient is individually treated. Some will be relaxing, others will be submitted to energising or even disturbing therapy.
1. Aqua Elise: an acoustic treatment made by two toy music instruments driven by water power. One bass shaker is mounted under the bed.
2. Falung Song: a edited video of Falung Gong meditation is placed under the bed, and a hole is made in the mattress with a Chinese’s Buddha chant machine that plays Buddhist loops on headphones, one bass shaker is mounted under the bed.
3. Hot Shaking: a bed treated with an electrical blanket and a massage machine is controlled by sound via light organ, AEG takes body sounds and two bass shaker are mounted under the bed, a sound track of of 70ts porno is on headphones.
4. Digital See: ventilators and sanding machines, mounted under the bed are controlled by different sound channels via light organ, plus a stroboscope and a soundtrack on the headphones.
5. Riders on the storm: a video loop is placed under the bed and a hole is made in the mattress one sanding machine is mounted under the bed controlled by sound.
6. Smith & Wickham: four sine waves of varying amplitudes are played simultaneously with a combination of pink, white and brown noise. The selection of the specific frequencies is made in consultation with the doctor and is based upon the Indo-Tibetan theory of vadacakra.
7. Raplapla: a 14-channel , audiotactile installation in wich the body becomes a resonator, from within wich the patient, lying on a hammock, hears prerecorded sounds played by a computer system.
Patients had mixed feelings about the therapy. For example: “a nice twinkling sound massage- first feeling like a typewriter medicine, then as being a victim of acid rain drilling through my bones and at the end the entire body being washed”.