A web of AI-con­trol­led cere­mo­ni­al bells trans­forms STUK’s cour­ty­ard into a pla­ce for encoun­ter and empa­the­tic listening.

Dhvāni means ​“reso­nan­ce” in Sanskrit. Resonances bet­ween soun­ding objects and bet­ween peo­p­le are the star­ting point for this instal­la­ti­on by Indian-born artist and thin­ker Budhaditya Chattopadhyay. In STUK’s cour­ty­ard, a web is stret­ched with hund­reds of Indian cere­mo­ni­al bells and other instru­ments, such as wind chi­mes and ghun­groos. By means of a self-built arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gen­ce sys­tem, this resoun­ding net­work res­ponds to human pre­sen­ce: foot­steps, voi­ces, hand clap­ping. Through machi­ne learning, the inter­con­nec­ted sys­tem impro­ves its per­for­man­ce over the six weeks of Hear Here, cre­a­ting a beyond-human reso­nant orga­nism. In this way, Chattopadhyay links ancient musi­cal tra­di­ti­ons with con­tem­po­ra­ry tech­no­lo­gies, invi­ting visi­tors to lis­ten empa­the­ti­cally and step out­si­de their judg­men­tal ​“ego”.

Since 2002, the STUK arts cen­tre has been hou­sed in a buil­ding in Naamsestraat that was then cal­l­ed the Arenberg Institute. This eclec­tic buil­ding, desig­ned by archi­tect Vincent Lenertz, was built by Duke Engelbert Marie of Arenberg and his mother Maria Eleonora of Arenberg. In 1907, they dona­ted a con­si­de­ra­ble sum of money to the University of Leuven to erect a new buil­ding for tea­ching and research in che­mistry. The inau­gu­ra­ti­on of this buil­ding took pla­ce on 9 May 1909, when the seven­ty-fifth anni­vers­a­ry of the re-esta­blis­hed Catholic University was also cele­bra­ted. The buil­ding was not qui­te rea­dy at that time. Only after World War I could the labo­ra­to­ries and class­rooms be com­mis­si­o­ned. Once the che­mists had all moved to the sci­en­ce cam­pus in Heverlee in the late 1970s, the search for a new use for the buil­ding began. After a tho­rough reno­va­ti­on bet­ween 1999 and 2002 by Dutch archi­tect Willem Jan Neutelings, arts cen­tre STUK moved in. Meanwhile, the com­plex has alrea­dy under­go­ne a second tho­rough reno­va­ti­on (2021−2023).

Text: Liesbet Nys (KU Leuven)