Amber Meulenijzer

Amber Meulenijzer
Amber Meulenijzer © Niclas Weber

“Saab Sculptures”, since 2018
Installation
Hiking parking lot, Monheim am Rhein
Daily

Performative city tours will take place on June 4 at 6.30pm and July 2, 2023 at 6pm

Amber Meulenijzer – Visit to Monheim am Rhein

In addition to the many parked cars in the trail parking lot, you could hear and see an artistically designed car from afar during The Sound. Brussels-based artist Amber Meulenijzer has also mounted twelve horn loudspeakers on the roof of her white Saab for the Monheim Treinnale in the summer of 2023. The loudspeakers come from old intercom systems and resemble megaphones in their shape. The artist can point the loudspeakers in different directions and send their sound specifically into the environment. In this way, the sound waves find resonant spaces in the landscape and in the city architecture. Similarly, the landscape is reflected in the windows of the car and is reflected back. The car is thereby both a mobile sound system and a sounding means of transport. In Monheim, the tuned Saab was installed in the parking lot for five weeks and has toured the city twice as part of a performative city tour.

With her project “Saab Sculptures,” Meulenijzer has been traveling through Europe since 2018 to explore the sound of landscapes and architectures. By working with historical form and technology and combining movement and sound, reminiscences of beatniks and the Fluxus movement are evoked, as well as the parking lot raves of the 1990s. The car as an everyday object becomes an instrument and at the same time a staged means of communication in the public life of a city.

Surprising and immediate, it speaks to us, but not so much to provoke, but as an instrument of exploration and staging of the relationship between time, space, sound, and environment.

Biography

Amber Meulenijzer lives and works in Brussels. With a background in sound art and visual art, she explores the interrelationships of these fields. She has worked for various Brussels radio programs over many years.

Artist Website

Amber Meulenijzer explored Monheim am Rhein on a rainy day.
Amber Meulenijzer explored Monheim am Rhein on a rainy day. © Niclas Weber