Sound Makes a Space
Immediately Tangible 

“Klangwelt Kreis Steinfurt” is a participatory, site-specific and multidisciplinary art project by Hans-Jürgen Poëtz. In collaboration with local residents, he developed a distinctive soundscape for each municipality. In conversation with the author and art historian Dr Sarah Alberti, he explains the district’s topographical, local and historical identity and reflects on the particular circumstances under which the project was created. 

Mr Poëtz, what can sound reveal about a place that images cannot?

Hans‑Jürgen Poëtz: I like the idea of not placing the viewer in front of an image, but placing them inside the image – inside the space itself. Sound brings us into a physical closeness that images simply cannot provide. It surrounds us; it sets the space in vibration and makes it immediately tangible. When the two of us speak, I don’t hear your voice just once, but a hundred, if not a thousand times. There are different wave fields: the first wave comes from in front and signals your position, but at the same time you hear yourself from behind – your voice surrounds both you and me. That sensation of being enveloped is fundamental to sound. Sound conveys how a place feels.

As an Austrian media artist, what drew you to engage with the district of Steinfurt in particular?

In 2022 I was invited to explore the acoustic DNA of the Semmering region and distil the sonic essence of this mountainous area in Austria. This sparked fundamental questions: Can such an acoustic analysis be applied to a much larger region? Can the very different sonic characteristics of several places be brought together into a coherent whole? And what conditions are needed to realise a project on this scale in the first place? With the call for the project fellowship “KunstKommunikation25” at DA, Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst, an ideal framework emerged one year later in which to pursue these questions. The year‑long fellowship provided me with the necessary time and financial scope. Engaging with site‑specific contexts is central to my artistic practice, and funding formats like these are crucial for developing projects of this magnitude.

How did you experience the region? What characterises it?

The district of Steinfurt is a rural region with connecting yet also very different histories. It is densely settled and at the same time characterised by wide, open landscapes with only a few elevations. Many traces of traditional crafts and historical narratives remain visible, even if they have changed or disappeared over time due to industrial development. Rural infrastructure is marked by ambivalence: on the one hand functional and enduring, on the other clearly challenged by long distances and structural change. Also striking is the high density of hospitals and care facilities – a sign of a region that invests strongly in its social infrastructure. Time and again I heard the saying: “Either you move with the times, or you go with the times.” Often there was a quiet melancholy beneath this statement which subtly shapes the region.

What makes the region sonically interesting to you?

Nature plays a significant role: above all water, with its many streams, canals and lakes, but also the wind sweeping across the open landscape, announcing shifts in the weather. These rapid, frequent changes shape the region’s atmosphere deeply. Even in remote locations, road noise mixes with ever‑present birdsong and the wind in the trees: sometimes like a conversation, sometimes like an argument, sometimes like a monologue. Linguistically, Münsterländer Platt carries a faint hint of Dutch. All this makes Steinfurt an acoustically and culturally rich and fascinating space.

What criteria guided your selection of the 24 locations?

The basis of my work is attentiveness – and of course curiosity. To develop an acoustic signature for each of the 24 municipalities, I researched stories, people, nature, technology, buildings, objects, and both everyday and special activities. The aim was to find sound locations that did not simply mark a geographical point, but pointed to key themes of the region. The Bio-Energy Park in Saerbeck, for example, stands symbolically for technological progress, sustainability, community and energy independence. The motorway interchange in Lotte alludes to movement, infrastructure and the pervasive presence of traffic, which has a strong acoustic impact on the region. The nature reserve “Heiliges Meer” in Hopsten represents recreation and leisure while carrying an air of mystery – legend has it that a sunken monastery lies in its depths. The selected sound locations across all 24 towns and municipalities were coordinated to form a cohesive acoustic whole: allowing overlaps and contrasts, creating a network of relationships typical of the district. The existing environment is never passive material – it is a co‑author. Through the active process, the individual sound worlds emerge out of a mixture of artistic experience and sensory perception.

How did collaboration with local people and institutions unfold?

On my journey I met many people, was received with open ears, and gained wonderful insights into diverse worlds. I was allowed to witness a knee operation live, enjoy a special guided tour of the “Gottesgabe” salt works, immerse myself in Münsterländer Platt with the Nordwalder Kiepenkerl Choir, watch a baker at work at night, learn how popcorn is produced, and develop a site‑specific sound piece in an old ice cellar to make traces of the past acoustically tangible.

How do you approach acoustic exploration? What recording techniques and equipment do you use?

My approach is strongly site‑specific. I research, visit potential locations, hold conversations and explore possibilities. Searching, investigating and experimenting with the surroundings is central to the recordings. I use a mobile recorder equipped with different microphones – contact microphones, a geophone, a stereo microphone, a hydrophone and a special room microphone. This allows me to capture focused, spatial and often hidden vibrations. I also carry a camera for photo and video documentation. The methods vary greatly depending on the location and concept. At the UKM Marienhospital, the idea from the outset was to follow a patient acoustically from blood testing through knee surgery to physiotherapy. I recorded hundreds of sounds that together form a multi‑layered sonic portrait of the robotic knee surgery process. In contrast, at the campsite in Wettringen I wandered around for hours and ended up recording only the cooing of a wood pigeon, because that sound captured the essence of the place – where time seemed to stand still and the smallest noise suddenly gained significance. Every place has its own logic and atmosphere, which guides me. A sound belongs to no one; it cannot be possessed. It has no stable being, not even the certainty of still existing a moment later. It appears only now – for this very moment – and then disappears. Site‑specific work is therefore always process‑oriented. Only through deeper insight do the ideas develop until a place or object reveals its unique quality. From over 40 hours of material, 24 sound pieces emerged, ranging from 50 seconds to 27 minutes, plus a 45‑minute sound film. The visual sequence for the campsite, for example, culminates in an image in which only light and wind seem to move.

On the project website, the 24 municipalities are listed. Were some locations particularly fruitful or surprising? Were there disappointments?

Initially, all locations were given equal weight. But each place brings its own parameters, creating different challenges and possibilities during the process. These vary depending on local conditions, artistic direction or cooperation. John Cage put it well: “The mystery is the process.” Disappointments were rare, though patience was sometimes required – for instance, to capture the wind in the leaves of the Tecklenburg vineyards. In Wettringen, for a moment I thought perhaps the campsite should be presented without sound. Only over time did the omnipresent cooing of pigeons reveal itself as the perfect acoustic marker. As the project progressed, deeper explorations developed at certain locations – I call them “satellites” – each offering a point of access to the overall project and exemplifying my artistic approach. Two site-specific sound installations and one happening showcased this: Eisschmelze in the Altenberge ice cellar focused on the hidden, making traces of the past acoustically visible. Gravenhorster Popcorn in the vaulted hall of the Kunsthaus revealed the unfamiliar within the everyday. Ochtruper Nachtigall, a participatory musical happening, explored the vessel flute as a communal sound practice. The unexpected is something one always hopes for. The most beautiful moments are those in which a place – or in this case an instrument – suddenly fascinates, and one immediately sees how it could be translated artistically.

How do urban and rural soundscapes differ in your perception?

Cities, with their taller and denser buildings, have many surfaces that reflect and carry sound. In a mostly flat area such as Steinfurt, sound dissipates quickly into the distance, appearing slower and more subdued. Because the district is densely settled, the road network is extremely tight – wherever you stand, you feel you can hear a car. A constant hum and murmur, near and far, loud and soft, which I perceived almost like an unavoidable breathing. In a city like Vienna, by contrast, traffic noise forms a dense, sharp cluster. Urban noise tends to merge into a constant roar; it is louder, yet – like the bustling atmosphere of a busy café – paradoxically makes conversation easier. In rural areas, however, many individual sounds emerge, harder to blend out. Depending on the situation, contrasting sound images arise: from sharp acoustic differences to pleasant quiet. At DA, Kunsthaus, two strong sound layers overlap: the noise of the nearby motorway and the birdsong around the old monastery grounds. During the day they compete; they do not merge, but remain as two distinct layers in constant tension. On one occasion, after an accident, the motorway was closed – and suddenly the birdsong expanded, transforming the place entirely. At night, when the birds fall silent, you can sink into an almost audiovisual concert: the light of passing cars flickering through the foliage like sparks drifting through the dark. One could almost set up a sofa and enjoy a poetic countryside cinema evening.

Did you identify an acoustic topography of the district?

The acoustic topography of Steinfurt is open, differentiated and full of contrasts. It is shaped by distinct, well‑localisable sound sources that form a fine, spatially perceptible acoustic fabric – in stark contrast to the dense soundscapes of cities. The characteristic sounds of the region were rearranged in terms of their intensity, movement, spatial effect, position and relationships. They point to regional themes and hint at functions, spaces or social contexts. My aim was to shape this acoustic DNA into a sound experience – not as a documentary gesture, but as an audiovisual experiment in which familiar elements form something new through artistic composition.

Displacement seems to be a key principle: images of one place combined with sounds of another. The connection between a power‑station demolition and knee‑surgery sounds feels unsettling and poetic at once. How do such correspondences emerge? Do you work associatively or according to a system?

Early explorations made it clear that, given the size of the project, a visual component was needed to anchor the recorded sounds. So I created a short video for every location. The images are shaped by their acoustic material and context, each showing a particular aspect or perspective. The rhythmic beat of a recording reappears in the jolting movement of a field railway in Lengerich. When the baker in Mettingen slams dough pieces onto the counter, the camera image shudders with the impact. In the final sound film, these images are set to recordings of the power‑station demolition – which are visually reversed so that the former landmark does not fall apart but re‑assembles, almost resurrects. The power station becomes the “patient”: the hammering, drilling and heartbeat‑like sounds of the knee operation hold it together, giving the heavy structure a bodily presence.
In this way, new relations emerge between places, creating productive irritations and questions about their contexts. It is about developing an awareness of where one is, what one hears, and whether the sound can be located at all. Through the shifting of sound and image, the 24 sites become an audiovisual network of possible interpretations. I am interested in cause and effect – but especially in the moments between them, when the direct connection dissolves. Only when the sounds meet do they form, for me, the acoustic image of the region. Hidden qualities come into focus: historical layers, topographical settings, human roles – the things that characterise a region beyond obvious labels. Whether a structure collapses or forms anew matters less than the friction between elements. So I work neither strictly systematically nor purely associatively, but in a process combining structure and intuition. This creates new perceptual interfaces – a sense of how a region feels, although it cannot be heard as a whole in reality.

In “Gravenhorster Popcorn”, an everyday action becomes a sound‑space installation. What fascinates you about the banal or overlooked?

I believe art enables people to truly perceive their surroundings. The banal – the everyday and taken‑for‑granted – often provides the best conditions for cultivating a new, site‑specific perceptual experience. We tend to distinguish in advance between “music” and “noise”, thereby closing ourselves off from unfamiliar listening. To offer preliminary access to the project’s sound worlds, three public events were held at selected locations, each providing insight into everyday acoustic environments and my working methods.
In one installation, popcorn was prepared on plates distributed throughout an acoustically fascinating vaulted hall. Visitors were wrapped in the sounds of popcorn – from the kernel to the finished snack. Everyday processes became unfamiliar sensory experiences that sharpened perception. Victor Shklovsky described art’s task aptly: to interrupt automatic perception and shift attention back to sensory experience. Through “defamiliarisation”, perception is intensified and newly oriented.

In the Altenberge ice cellar, you make acoustic traces of the past perceptible. How does one reconstruct past soundscapes?

The ice once stored there to cool beer production was made to “melt” acoustically. Numerous water sounds collected across the district – from single droplets to gentle flowing water – provided the material for the reconstructed soundscape.
In the three-storey ice cellar, the air is cold, heavy and moist, with isolated droplets regularly hitting the ground. From this, a site-specific sound-space piece emerged, made perceptible through hidden loudspeakers. The interaction between dripping water, architecture and visitor movements created a sensual experience of space, history and sound – one that also questions familiar assumptions.

What role does participation play in your artistic concept?

Access, exchange, insight and participation are essential for engaging deeply with a place. In the Popcorn installation, machines shaped the recordings; in the ice cellar, the space itself made those past traces audible; in Ochtrup, people created the sound through workshops and a communal performance of the vessel flute. Only through participation could such multi-layered material emerge. Local conversations, tips and contributions enriched the project transdisciplinarily. I appreciate this in multidisciplinary projects – everything interconnects like a neural network, where eventually all gears interlock and the synapses fire everywhere.

To what extent do you see your work contributing to debates about “home”, regional identity or perceptions of rural spaces?

A central element of my work is space itself – shaped through boundaries, restrictions or special features. My works begin by capturing forces, whether social, architectural or virtual. Through my affinity with sound art and Land Art, I have been working with site-specific contexts for almost three decades. My work touches on emotional attachments to place, questions familiar perceptions of rural life and engages with political participation and narrative power. It reflects stereotypes of rural areas and the role of landscape, cultural heritage and social interaction as key reference points for identity. Thus, the work does not aim merely to mirror nostalgic ideas of “home”, but to make the complex social, political and cultural dynamics of rural spaces both audible and experienceable.

Your website documents the locations, yet your artistic method involves deliberate shifts and re‑connections. Where do you draw the line between documentary and fiction?

For me, this boundary is fluid. My work is rooted in real spaces – their history, traces and social contexts – which is documentary in nature. But through artistic shaping, through the interplay of sound, architecture and the movements of listeners, a staged, narrative level emerges that feels fictional. I am not interested in reproducing reality, but in making forces, atmospheres and relationships perceptible. The result is work that both documents and opens spaces for imagination, reflection and new stories.

Sound art exists between visual art and music. How do you situate your practice within this field?

I understand sound as spatial material that reveals architectural and social contexts while enabling aesthetic experience. Musical elements provide structure, rhythm and dynamics; visual thinking allows spaces, traces and stories to be sensed. Sound art is not a compromise for me – it is a medium that makes both possible: listening as sensory experience and thinking about space, history and identity.

You originally studied painting and architecture…

My transition to sound art was a logical development of my artistic work: timbre and space merging into new sensory experiences. I remain rooted in visual art, but in my cross‑media practice the boundaries are fluid. I am fascinated by the transitions and frictions between disciplines: how a moving image becomes sculpture, a sculpture becomes light, a painting becomes a sound space, or a static image becomes film. Frank Lloyd Wright captured it perfectly: “Space is the breath of art.” Art needs space to breathe and unfold. His house “Fallingwater” is, for me, one of the first works in which architecture, sculpture, sound, scent, moving image and tactile perception truly meet. At the heart of my work is the creation of states. The artistic form develops through the process itself. My exploration of space is strongly informed by acoustic experience, especially the feeling of being enveloped. Just as sound surrounds us, so our senses envelop us – perceiving, remembering, connecting. The core idea is always to create conditions in which a new, specific perception of a place becomes possible.

What do you hope for the project’s long‑term future? Should it continue beyond 2026?

The project website will remain online until the end of 2026 and offers the opportunity to experience everyday worlds anew and explore the project. The sound film will be presented there from the end of January 2026 and will also be shown at various venues. The website invites independent exploration through images, texts and stories linked to each place. A publication is also planned, presenting the results both documentary and artistically for a wider audience. I hope the project continues to resonate beyond 2026 by opening pathways to rural spaces and their narratives. It should not only offer artistic experiences, but inspire discussions about “home”, regional identity and the perception of rural areas. Long term, the project is intended as an archival resource, a source of inspiration, and a reference point for further artistic or academic work. Ideally, the content will not simply be consumed passively, but actively used, interpreted and extended – whether through personal sound experiments, digital projects or future events.

November 2025

Dr. Sarah Alberti is an author, moderator and art historian specialising in art in public space, memory culture, and the art and culture of the GDR.