Mikrozvuk #17: Jacob Kirkegaard (Opus Mors)

The work - Opus Mors is an immersive, intimate and powerfully detailed sonic meditation into these four significant death spaces.

Opus Mors is four listening spaces for one of the existential and natural aspects of being alive, which is death. The project portrays four sound environments that the human body commonly will be surrounded by or exposed to in the immediate post mortem: a morgue, an autopsy, a cremation and the decomposition - events that no one will ever get to sense on their own bodies because of the very fact of death.

Opus Morturarium Two ambient recordings made inside two morgues listens within the deep tones from the facilities that keep the corpses cold

Opus Autopsia Detailed near-field sound recordings of a full autopsy starting with opening the corpse, following the removal and slicing and cutting open all the organs and brain, to finally returning all the organs, closing and washing the corpse. This work reveals each unique sonic timbre of the human organs.

Opus Crematio Coffin being rolled into the oven, the oven's different burning stages, the removal and relocation of the ashes into the ash cooler and then to the bone crusher. Finally, the ashes being poured into the urn. Vibration sensors placed on the surfaces of the oven reveal the inside sound environment of the oven.

Opus Putesco Sound recordings made at a forensic study facility where donated corpses are placed in an enclosed nature area to decompose while being studied. This work was made from near-field sound recordings of decomposing corpses recorded with measurement microphones placed 1 cm above - as well as with vibration sensors inside the corpses.

This project has been supported using public funds provided by Slovak Arts Council