Biography
Jacob Kirkegaard, working as an ambient sound sculptor and photographer, produces pieces that explore human auditory perception through field recordings. Capturing both sound and vibration, he seeks to express the inherent energy of particular sites. This method renders audible the acoustic qualities of geysers, desert sands, melting icebergs, the Chernobyl and Fukushima ruins, and additional restricted or remote locations. Engaging directly with his output often prompts a fresh perception of one's surroundings. Standout releases encompass 2005's Eldfjall, built from geothermal vibrations documented in Iceland, and 2008's Labyrinthitis, assembled from recordings made inside his own inner ear membrane.
After completing studies at the Media Art Academy in Cologne in 2006, Kirkegaard had already begun issuing sound works on multiple labels while still a student. His initial outing arrived as 2002's Soaked, a collaboration with Philip Jeck on the U.K.'s Touch label, an imprint with which he has maintained an ongoing association. The following year brought 01.02 on Bottrop Boy. In 2004 he helped establish the sound art collective freq_out, whose release freq_out [0—∞Hz] appeared on Ash International. From 2005 through 2008 Touch presented three substantial works—Eldfjall, 4 Rooms (captured inside an abandoned chapel within the still radioactive Chernobyl zone), and Labyrinthitis, frequently regarded as his defining achievement. Sound installations and photography by Kirkegaard have appeared at venues worldwide, among them Museum of Modern Art, The Hood Museum, LOUISIANA, ARoS, KW, The Menil Collection, Rothko Chapel, Aichi Triennale, and Mori Art Museum. His work resides in the collection of LOUISIANA Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.
During 2012 he joined Tobias Kirstein for Imperia on Posh Isolation, a manipulated field recording originating at the decommissioned nuclear power plant in Barsebäck, southern Sweden. Touch received 2013's Conversion, an LP containing two pieces derived from Labyrinthitis and "Church" (drawn from 4 Rooms) realized with the Danish classical ensemble Scenatet. That same year he partnered with pioneering Danish sound composer Else Marie Pade (1927-2016) on Svævninger, issued by Important Records. Von released 40 Days of Silence, the soundtrack to the film by Uzbek director Saodat Ismailova.
ARC marked the first of two projects surfacing in 2015. Commissioned originally as a soundtrack to Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), the piece employed fragments of contemporaneous music stretched to evoke the mystically charged atmosphere that could simultaneously frame the saint as visionary and heretic. His second release that year was the triple-cassette 5 Pieces for Posh Isolation. These encompassed the underwater recordings of "Æsturarium," transforming the sounds of the Hudson River and its swirling sediments into a 29-minute white-noise suite; "Iron Wind," registering vibrations from German fences; "Déjà Vu," a feedback exchange among eight empty rooms; "Fool's Fire," an electrified needle detecting radio waves from crystals; and "Under Bjerget," a 58-minute meditation on rattling tubes inside a Copenhagen basement that advances glacially from drone through pulse to rumble. Rolling Stone magazine placed it among its Top 20 Avant Albums of 2015, even though the edition totaled only 200 copies. One year later Kirkegaard received the designation sound-artist-in-residence at St. John's College, University of Oxford, U.K.
In 2017 he and fellow Danish sound artist Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard produced Descending, two extended works generated from room resonances and performed by the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra. Important issued two Kirkegaard albums in June 2019: the CD Phonurgia Metallis and the limited LP Black Metal Square, both comprising pieces for piezo sensor and contact speaker. September of that year saw TOPOS, an arts organization co-founded by Kirkegaard, release Opus Mors, a four-LP set centered on death and incorporating recordings from autopsies and morgues. Time Is Local, a collaboration with We Like We, appeared on Sonic Pieces the same month.
After completing studies at the Media Art Academy in Cologne in 2006, Kirkegaard had already begun issuing sound works on multiple labels while still a student. His initial outing arrived as 2002's Soaked, a collaboration with Philip Jeck on the U.K.'s Touch label, an imprint with which he has maintained an ongoing association. The following year brought 01.02 on Bottrop Boy. In 2004 he helped establish the sound art collective freq_out, whose release freq_out [0—∞Hz] appeared on Ash International. From 2005 through 2008 Touch presented three substantial works—Eldfjall, 4 Rooms (captured inside an abandoned chapel within the still radioactive Chernobyl zone), and Labyrinthitis, frequently regarded as his defining achievement. Sound installations and photography by Kirkegaard have appeared at venues worldwide, among them Museum of Modern Art, The Hood Museum, LOUISIANA, ARoS, KW, The Menil Collection, Rothko Chapel, Aichi Triennale, and Mori Art Museum. His work resides in the collection of LOUISIANA Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.
During 2012 he joined Tobias Kirstein for Imperia on Posh Isolation, a manipulated field recording originating at the decommissioned nuclear power plant in Barsebäck, southern Sweden. Touch received 2013's Conversion, an LP containing two pieces derived from Labyrinthitis and "Church" (drawn from 4 Rooms) realized with the Danish classical ensemble Scenatet. That same year he partnered with pioneering Danish sound composer Else Marie Pade (1927-2016) on Svævninger, issued by Important Records. Von released 40 Days of Silence, the soundtrack to the film by Uzbek director Saodat Ismailova.
ARC marked the first of two projects surfacing in 2015. Commissioned originally as a soundtrack to Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), the piece employed fragments of contemporaneous music stretched to evoke the mystically charged atmosphere that could simultaneously frame the saint as visionary and heretic. His second release that year was the triple-cassette 5 Pieces for Posh Isolation. These encompassed the underwater recordings of "Æsturarium," transforming the sounds of the Hudson River and its swirling sediments into a 29-minute white-noise suite; "Iron Wind," registering vibrations from German fences; "Déjà Vu," a feedback exchange among eight empty rooms; "Fool's Fire," an electrified needle detecting radio waves from crystals; and "Under Bjerget," a 58-minute meditation on rattling tubes inside a Copenhagen basement that advances glacially from drone through pulse to rumble. Rolling Stone magazine placed it among its Top 20 Avant Albums of 2015, even though the edition totaled only 200 copies. One year later Kirkegaard received the designation sound-artist-in-residence at St. John's College, University of Oxford, U.K.
In 2017 he and fellow Danish sound artist Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard produced Descending, two extended works generated from room resonances and performed by the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra. Important issued two Kirkegaard albums in June 2019: the CD Phonurgia Metallis and the limited LP Black Metal Square, both comprising pieces for piezo sensor and contact speaker. September of that year saw TOPOS, an arts organization co-founded by Kirkegaard, release Opus Mors, a four-LP set centered on death and incorporating recordings from autopsies and morgues. Time Is Local, a collaboration with We Like We, appeared on Sonic Pieces the same month.
Albums
Singles
