Listening to train stations with Marcus Kaiser
In 1998, I had attend zwischen,
a two-hour live installation by Marcus Kaiser at the Wuppertal Main
Train Station. I had taken the seventy-minute train ride from
Düsseldorf, where I was staying at the time. When I got off the
train, the performance was already in progress, though I didn’t
know it. I walked around the platforms and the station in the nervous
pace that had become my norm at train stations. I looked for Marcus and
the performers among the other anxious travelers. Not being able to
find them, I stopped. As the click-clack of wheels and the sound of the
electric engine of a train pulled away from the station, I could hear a
quiet, sustained tone. Then I saw a violinist bowing a long tone
standing next to a singer. As I looked around, I noticed four more
string players, each paired with a singer, stationed at various
platforms, also performing long tones. I slowed down and listened,
taking it all in. I stayed for more than an hour, strolling to
different parts of the station and listening to different pairs of
musicians. By the end of the hour, I began to hear the noises of the
station differently: the rumbling of the steel cars, the metallic
squawk on the intercom, the digital bells announcing the closing doors,
the chatter of passersby, the clicking of high heels on
concrete—against this quiet tone, these sounds became melody,
rhythm, and harmony. Now when I go to a train station, I listen for the
song—I can almost hear Marcus’ quiet, sustained tones.
Marcus had transformed all train stations for me.
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