Volkmar Klien

Installation view at the Konzerthaus Wien, November 2025 (Festival Wien Modern)

Three wooden beams are bent in a historic press.
The machine listens to the timber’s sounds that it elicits through its actions.
And the wood in its care groans, creaks, and cracks.

The beams communicate with the machine through their sounds, which in turn lovingly increases or reduces its pressure. The spindles' stamps slowly descend and imprint themselves in beams’ shape and the sounds created by these deformations.

The machine looks after its beams with the most tender attention; it listens, observes, and nurtures. It attentively perceives their every response and learns to ever better adapt its own reactions.

The beams’ creaks resonate not only in the machine’s control circuits reigning over them, but also in the loudspeakers in the exhibition space. Visitors witness an intense, delicate and deeply physical relationship between the machine and its subjects, the beams made of bundled strips of planed beech wood.

The machine turns large screws.
It controls with great care and optimizes its actions with constant consideration for the signals from its own sphere of influence.
And the beams in its care sound exactly as it wants them to.

Volkmar Klien - Idee, Konzept, Umsetzung
Gerald Hanisch - Produktion
Bernardo Niederhageböck - Konstruktion Antrieb
Leo Praschl || LEtrOnik.at - Automation & Hardware

Premiere presentation Oct 30th - Nov 6th, 2025, Konzerthaus Wien, Wien Modern 2025
A co-production with Wien Modern, Konzerthaus Wien, Fleiß & Industrie