Christina Kubisch

Christina Kubisch is one of the pioneers of sound art, belonging to its very first generation. After musical training as a flutist and composer in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, she lived in Milan until 1987 – where she began developing an artistic practice at the intersection of visual art, performance, and sound – and now resides in Berlin. 

 

By reinterpreting the relationship between composer and listener and reshaping their interaction through musical experience, Kubisch began to combine her studies in composition with engineering, using technology to create innovative musical hybrids. She experimented with unconventional materials – including solar energy, ultraviolet light, electromagnetic induction, small speakers, cables, and headphones – as sources of sound. In the Seventies she explored gender-critical performance and collaborated with Fabrizio Plessi on the Video-Concerts, works combining media and live action. By the early 1980s she moved toward space-related sound installations, experimenting with magnetic induction and audiovisual strategies of her own invention. Later, light became an additional element in her work, leading to large-scale site-specific installations uniting visual and acoustic dimensions.

 

A turning point came in 2003 with the launch of the Electrical Walks series: urban sound walks where hidden electromagnetic fields are made audible through custom-designed headphones. The pieces Djungle Walk and Travel are taken from a spectacular Audio/Multimedia CD, a reprint of the private 1984 release originally available only on cassette. This work serves as a final and comprehensive document of the series of installations titled On Air or Magnetic Air, which Christina Kubisch presented in Italy and across Europe between 1982 and 1986. The relationship between specific spaces and electronic music was explored through the use of magnetic induction cables and special headphones. Even decades later, On Air remains a fascinating listening experience and a unique illustration of the artistic integration of sound and space.