Ernie Althoff >> The Middle Eight
For over 30 years Ernie Althoff has been constructing site-specific, kinetic musical instruments (or sound sculptures). A devotee of the low-budget approach, and a diviner of everyday objects, Althoff’s instruments produce subtle music of organised randomness.
Essential to all of Althoff’s instruments is the use of salvaged items, domestic objects, industrial materials, and repurposed devices. Manufactured wood and metal products, natural materials including stone, shells and bamboo, and salvaged equipment such as electric fans and old turntables, are the most prominent and recurring items that Althoff has used in recent years to assemble a mix of automated and playable instruments.
A audio excerpt of The Middle Eight, recorded in the Geelong Gallery, July 2009.