Reality hacking

Hans Peter Frehner of the ensemble for new music zurich was commissioned to compose a score for 8 ship sirens and fog horns. At the docks of the Lake Zurich fleet in Wollishofen, the engines of the nostalgic paddle steamer and seven motor ships were started up to generate enough pressure to operate the sirens and horns. 8 musicians in the wheelhouses equipped with stopwatches then performed the written score (5 min 6 sec) on the ship sirens and fog horns. The piece was composed with various “empty” spaces of silence in between. In collaboration with the ensemble a new score was written into these spaces. On 11 July 2003, the ensemble premiered RH #205 at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva.