String Tension History
Installation and Video-Performance, 2026
Premiered at the Berlin Medical History Museum of Charité in the framework of the “Global Dystopia Sound Art Biennial”
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“String Tension History” is a two-part work by artist Kirstin Burckhardt, consisting of a sound installation and a performance. The sound installation will be on view from September 29 to October 11 in the Museum’s “specimen hall”. The performance will take place on October 10 in the Museum’s “Lecture Hall Ruin” (“Hörsaalruine”).
The work centers around the relationship between the artist and her harp. Having arrived in Germany on the day the First World War began and having survived both World Wars, the harp came to a breaking point after more than 110 years.
In the installation, the instrument can be seen after its restoration. Through headphones, visitors can hear how the sounds of the restoration intertwine with the artist’s voice and personal history. During the Nazi era, the artist’s German great-grandfather signed medical assessments for forced sterilizations. The artist herself lost her fertility as a result of a gynecological tumor and endometriosis.
In the performance in the Lecture Hall Ruin, the artist tells the story of the three bodies – the harp, those that were forcibly steriziled, and her own body. Then a video documents the restoration of the harp both visually and acoustically. Binaural microphones inside the “belly” of the instrument, together with contact microphones, make it possible to hear the restoration “from within.” Adding her own voice, the artist sings a lament into the harp’s resonating body. In this way, the artist’s voice merges with the sound of the harp to form a shared song.
„String Tension History” was co-produced by Mario Asef with the support of the Global Dystopia Sound Art Biennial 2026.
Photos: Alice Stellaph
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