A Swiss installation artist who focuses on sound, his work has interesting examples of sound's effect on people.
In his work ‘Salat’ (2007), he played the Islamic call for Prayer (Adhan) in typically Christian environments such as church towers. He certainly succeeded in getting a reaction from people. Given a very a high Christian population and some hostilities towards Islamic faith in recent years the work received a lot of negative reactions. He was eventually arrested and had his equipment seized by the Swiss authorities.
Watching the footage I was surprised at just how loud the prayer was, and most of the reactions from the public I noticed were of general confusion.
This piece has influenced me to experiment with sound recordings in public places, I’ll be gathering visual and audio recordings around public spaces in Canterbury, and plan on setting up a discrete sound system in a similar approach to ‘Salat.’ I plan to play seaside sounds typical to Brighton’s seafront, and record what reactions it gets.
