Sound Film –
Klangwelt Kreis Steinfurt

KLANGWELT KREIS STEINFURT
HD AUDIO/VIDEO, 2026
42'44''

The sound film Klangwelt Kreis Steinfurt is an audiovisual portrait of the district of Steinfurt. It was developed through an almost two-year period of exploration and artistic research into the “acoustic DNA” of this extensive, predominantly rural region. 

The aim was to develop a distinct acoustic signature for each of the district’s 24 towns and municipalities. This was based on research into stories, people, nature, technology, buildings, objects, as well as everyday and exceptional activities. From each municipality, a specific sound location was ultimately selected, pointing to central themes of the region. The selection of all sound locations was carefully coordinated and arranged into an overarching sonic composition that allows for both overlaps and contrasts, forming, through their interrelations, a characteristic acoustic fabric of the district. Present-day traces played as important a role as the reconstruction of past sound spaces, as well as those sound worlds that cannot come into being without active participation. 

The outcome comprises 24 distinct sound pieces ranging in length from 50 seconds to 27 minutes, alongside short videos that together provide the material for the sound film. The filmed images are consistently shaped by their acoustic material and context, each presenting an aspect, a perspective or a state. In sequences of audiovisual experimental settings, image and sound interact deliberately: they shimmer, tremble, bubble, focus and expand one another, consciously reversing conventional filmic patterns in which sound typically accompanies the image. 

Through shifts and artistic composition, sounds from one municipality are combined with images from another, and vice versa. From the familiar, a new perspective on the surroundings emerges. In this way, new connections are formed between places, while at the same time moments of irritation arise and questions are directed at the respective locations. The sound film sharpens awareness of where one is, what one hears, and how – or whether – the sounds can be clearly assigned at all, and what story they tell. 

Only through the interrelation of individual sounds does the acoustic image of the region take shape. In this open process, hidden qualities of places come into focus: their historical layers, their topographical conditions, the role of people, and those characteristics that define a region beyond clear categorisations. Through the deliberate shifting of image and sound, the 24 locations are interwoven into an audiovisual spatial network that allows for multiple readings. 

Klangwelt Kreis Steinfurt addresses emotional attachments to places, questions common perceptions of rural ways of life, and engages with issues of political participation and narrative authority. Beyond this, the sound film reflects on stereotypical images of rural spaces and examines the significance of landscape, cultural heritage and social interactions as central points of reference for identity. In doing so, the sound film seeks not only to mirror nostalgic notions of Heimat, but also to make the complex social, political and cultural dynamics shaping rural areas audible and perceptible.