Site-responsive sound walk · GPS-triggered iOS app · Experimental film · Berlin, 2012–14
BERG
Every feeling of drift is naturally associated with a more general way of taking life, which nevertheless would be misguided to deduce mechanically. One day we will construct cities made for drifting. You can use, with relatively light touch-ups, some areas that already exist. You can use certain people that already exist.””
— Guy Debord, Theorie de la Derive
“There is such a thing as historical fetishisation, and with Berlin’s dark past, many a location lends itself to this near-obsessive fascination. Few locations have drawn quite as many curious onlookers as Grunewald’s Teufelsberg, and audio-visual artist Valentina Ferrandes has set out to confront visitors with the obvious, well-intentioned, yet somewhat comical fetishistic attraction to the former Cold War listening station with her interactive audio-visual sound art project Berg. The free smartphone app accompanies pathfinders through the woodsy Teufelsberg area with a layered soundscape of fictional audio fragments from cliché Cold War films, field recordings, actual clandestine short wave frequency messages, and electronic music elements. Each audio layer will activate via GPS as listeners wander through carefully selected “sound cloud” areas.”
— “The Sound of Surveillance / Sugarhigh / 14 August 2013
About the work.
Built from the rubble of Berlin after the Second World War, Teufelsberg became one of the most significant listening stations operated by Western intelligence during the Cold War. Today, its abandoned radar domes remain as architectural relics of a divided city, attracting visitors drawn to the site's history and cinematic atmosphere.
The extraordinary acoustic properties of the radomes became the starting point for BERG. Inside these fibreglass structures, sound travels along curved surfaces, producing unexpected reverberations, delays and directional echoes.
BERG extends this acoustic experience into the surrounding landscape through a GPS-triggered sound walk. As visitors move through the Grunewald forest, invisible zones of sound activate overlapping fragments of radio transmissions, field recordings, spoken word and fictional espionage narratives. Each journey produces a different sequence, transforming the landscape into a shifting auditory experience.
Moving between historical traces and cinematic fiction, the work explores the fascination surrounding Berlin's Cold War past and the ways collective memory is shaped, reconstructed and consumed through images and stories.
The Sound Walk.
BERG became a GPS-triggered soundscape for iPhone, designed for the Grunewald forest surrounding Berlin’s former Teufelsberg listening station.
The iOS application contained an archive of manipulated audio samples, accessed through an interface based on geographic coordinates and a satellite view of the site. A map of the Grunewald forest was marked with geometric motifs, indicating the locations of invisible sound clouds distributed throughout the landscape.
BERG. A GPS-triggered soundscape for iPhone
As visitors moved through the area, the phone’s GPS activated overlapping tracks composed of radio broadcasts, spoken word, manipulated field recordings, shortwave transmissions and fragments inspired by Cold War espionage and classic cinema.
Sound fragments were organised into categories — spoken word, Foley effects, drones and atmospheric tracks — then mapped to geographic coordinates to create overlapping listening zones.Each journey generated a different sonic composition, shaped by the visitor’s movements through the landscape.
The work brings together experimental filmmaking, sound composition and location-based interaction, using the physical movement of the listener as an element of the narrative.
HD Video. Length. 10'’ Loop. Year: 2013-14
BERG. The film
BERG also exists as an experimental film combining contemporary footage of Berlin with a fragmented soundtrack assembled from more than thirty espionage films.
Familiar cinematic conventions — intercepted conversations, coded messages, suspenseful silences and noir atmospheres — are dismantled and recomposed into an ambiguous narrative.
The film juxtaposes fictional representations of espionage with the contemporary appearance of Teufelsberg, questioning how popular cinema shapes our perception of historical places and contributes to the mythologisation of Berlin's past. The project developed through location-based acoustic research, field recording, archival sampling and interactive sound design.
PROJECT DETAILS.
Years: 2012–2014
Location: Teufelsberg, Grunewald, Berlin, Germany
Medium: Experimental film, GPS-triggered sound walk, iOS application, sound collage
Film duration: 11'29" (Vimeo version)
Concept, video and sound: Valentina Ferrandes
iOS development: Mark Haack
Graphics: Rainer Kohlberger
SCREENINGS. 2012-2016.
2016 Cinetekton - Festival Internacional de Cine y Arquitectura - Mexico
2015 Alchemy - Artist Film and Moving Image Festival - Hawick - UK
2014 Dalliance Film Channel - Online Distribution
Projector Video Festival - Madrid - ES
Southeritage Foundation for Contemporary Art
2013 Rencontres Internationales New Cinema and Contemporary Art - Haus der Kulturen der Welt - Berlin - DE
Scope Sessions Artist Talks and Media Salon - Panke e.V - Berlin - DE
Cinesonika - Festival and Conference on Sound Studies - Nerve Art Centre - Northern Ireland and Simon Fraser University - Vancouver - CA
Zoom International Short Film Festival - PL
Celeste Art Prize. Finalist Works. Italy
The Salon of Light and Shadow - The Horse Hospital - London - UK
700IS Reindeer Land Festival for Experimental Film - Nordic House - Reykjavik - Iceland
2012 Rencontres Internationales - Palais de Tokyo - Paris - FR curated by Natalie Heron
Fullframe Kunstfilmfestival - Museum für Moderne Kunst Kino - Vienna - Austria curated by Wiktoria Petzel
Other projects
The Oyster Effect. Experimental Docu. 2010
Lilong. Experimental Docu. 2009