Electroacoustic band Wooden Peak launch album at historic building Energiefabrik Knappenrode

Image credit: Tobias Schütze

Human | Machine | Nature is an electroacoustic, sound-archaeological composition by Leipzig-based Sebastian Bode and Jonas Wolter. As WOODEN PEAK they have been releasing albums of experimental pop music since 2009 and under the name TELESKOP- “Studio for Aural Arts” they create textures and sound art for films, museums, and a variety of other audio-related projects.

The site of Human | Machine | Nature is the former briquette factory “Werminghoff”, known as the mining museum Energiefabrik Knappenrode, not far from Hoyerswerda, near the German-Polish border. At the beginning of the nineties, the factory was shut down in the course of the GDR’s end and re-opened as a museum very little later in a barely changed state.

After the process of conversion, the factory has become an acoustically peaceful place here and now. But what happens when the sounds from the old days return and merge with music and noises of today?

The idea for the sound exhibition Klangimpulse was born for, which is scheduled to open in Knappenrode in 2022. Bode and Wolter meticulously collected sounds from today’s museum grounds and from archives for more than a year- sounds from the peculiar silence of the rooms, the deafening noise of the machines, but also from the surrounding nature, which is gradually reclaiming the site.