METEORGAN

METEORGAN was born out of a meeting between composer Walter Hus and renewable energy expert Geert Palmers, who share a passion for wind.  In this installation, presented as a work in progress during Son.Oor in Flagey, wind measurement data is converted in real time into an endless stream of organ music. 

Wind can be measured in great detail and converted into digital data. Walter has been making music for years with computer-controlled, automatic pipe organs from the Decap company in Herentals. Here too, digital data is involved, but it does the opposite: it generates variations in the air pressure of the organ pipes.

The music is produced by a beautiful automatic pipe organ, called “The Eye”, which houses the most advanced air pressure technology in the world; the latest operating system from Decap.

Together with his son Jacob, Walter Hus is developing a compositional concept that uses various facets of meteorological measurements — wind speed, wind direction and altitude — as ingredients for a self-writing endless composition. They want to let the wind itself improvise continuously within a musical logic that they have designed especially for it.

This work explores the existential duality of meteorology on an organ: humanity is increasingly dependent on meteorological energy, while its vulnerability to extreme weather phenomena continues to grow.

Flagey, La Semaine du Son.Oor