Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn

SSSSI: TheGreat.wav with Sven Sosnitski / 2013

18 channel audio (variable according to the space)

We are reinventing the famous woodblock print by Hokusai "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" as an acoustic experience. The visitors of the museum will routinely experience a loud sound wave of destruction passing through the space established with multiple audio speakers. In the original work, Hokusai shows the dangers and fears of stormy seas. However, this piece has been widely overused and it has lost it’s original impact. Today we do not fear the seas in the same sense but we do fear flooding and rising sea levels from global warming. The wave is a physically perceivable form or a sound figure, however, it only exists through that on-site experience.

SSSS is a collaboration project between artist Sten Saarits and composer Sven Sosnitski. The duo work with audio-visual space installations. The first collaboration project was an installation piece entitled „SSSSI: TheGreat.wav“ or "The Great Wave" which is represented graphically when writing down both of their initials together.