Certain Rhythms for Space, 1985, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Video

In 1985, Pétursson also set up the work Certain Rhythms for Space in Time Based Arts, Amsterdam. A slightly modified version, the third, was later shown at Birgir Andrésson’s gallery on Vesturgata in Reykjavik. An old gramophone with no record on it stood in the middle of the floor connected to ten loudspeakers which lay closer to the walls all around and either supported cardboard tubes of various widths or stood on top of them. This remarkable work was important insofar as it brought the loudspeaker to the fore as Finnbogi Pétursson’s favorite medium. The gramophone controlled and evened out the rhythmic interval between the modulation control and each respective loudspeaker, sending tones colored by the different lengths of cardboard tube back and forth across the room. The result was a prosodic rhythmical concert that the audience was completely unable to locate or relate to. Perhaps Petursson came closer to music in this work than any other. But at the same time it clarified his spatial conception, which he calls “sound drawings.” H.B.R