Inner curiosity has been the driving force behind David's new and unexpected pursuits over the years. Condensed in projects which push social boundaries, challenge people to question their--probably outdated--values, and critique cultural-historical mindsets. As a sound and media artist, David invented and constructed the Theremin for the Deaf, probably the first musical instrument that generates sound without any acoustics. It reflects society's faulty understanding that hearing is intrinsically linked to the creation of sound waves by turning a hearing aid into a hearing extension. Based on his longstanding concert (booking) experiences, David designed Tour It Yourself, an app that helps independent musicians get in contact with concert locations in the right way and without any prior know-how. Moreover, together with Prof. W. Ernst (Humboldt Uni. of Berlin) and T. Fecker, he published the multimedia publication Geistervorlesung [Ghost Lecture], which bypass the traditional book using smart devices and AI. Additionally, he designed the DNA Based Music Machine which is supposed to compose music out of proteins naturally, but instead shows that the arbitrary symbolic regime of sheet music doesn't allow such an undertaking. In 2017, David conducted a sensory experiment called Sounds Like Berlin by exploring the Danish capital of Copenhagen while listening to the noisy but familiar soundscape of his hometown Berlin.
It is common knowledge that sound is carried by dancing air molecules which hit the eardrum and make the acoustical time event audible; therefore, the relationship between hearing and acoustics has never been questioned until today. Yet, this understanding of hearing, bound to acoustics, has been outdated since the cochlear implant—a little device and a true hearing aid—introduced in 1961. By processing electrical and electromagnetic signals in today’s tiny computer behind the ear, cochlear implant users can hear more than just the acoustic environment. Thus, the cochlear implant is far more than just hearing prosthesis; it is an extension of hearing which highlights an extraordinary connection between human beings and technology. Based on this outstanding relationship, the project “Theremin for the Deaf”—a musical instrument which creates sound without acoustics—has been designed to show that sound can also be conveyed without sound waves. In conclusion, the “Theremin for the Deaf” aimed to provoke a rethinking of the relation between ear and acoustics and to form an understanding of hearing which does not necessarily arise from the irritation of the eardrum by air pressure. Furthermore, the Theremin for the Deaf turns a hearing prosthesis into a hearing extension by showing the media technology's actual potential.Read Me.
2018–Present
Interviews & Presentations
Scenes of Media Theater
Berlin (Germany) | June 2018
Presentation (En)
Symposium of the German Cochlear-Implant Society
Hamburg (Germany) | May 2018
Exhibition
Dramaturgy of Signals
Berlin (Germany) | April 2018
Presentation (De)
Tour It Yourself is the first digital booking assistant for your pocket--an app for all independent artists to book concerts and tours by themselves. At the center of the app is the venue database, consisting of around 1500 German clubs. By using the smart filter, each venue can be filtered by location, genre, and day. In the next step, preferred locations and venues can be emailed separately or collected in a favorites list to contact collectively. The key feature here is that individual concert requests are generated from the venue database and the electronic press kit, the profile of the artists, consisting of band info, concert history, videos, songs, etc.. Tour It Yourself was realized in the company Digital. Wolff based on David's experiences, which served as guidelines for his concept and user interface design. Unfortunately, the project has struggled in 2020 due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic which has affected the music industry tremendously.
2018–2020
Interviews & Presentations
Reeperbahn Festival 2019
Hamburg (Germany) | September 2019
Presentation (En)
Berlin Reloaded
Radio FluxFM | July 2019
Radio Interview (De)
Rockszene Hannover
Online Mag | June 2019
Interview (De)
Soundkartell
Online blog | June 2019
Interview (De)
PopKW
State Association | June 2019
Interview (De)
Fritz Unsigned
Radio Fritz | May 2019
Radio Interview (De)
In summer 2020, Germany's universities shifted their teaching to virtual space. But what does "digitale Lehre" [remote teaching] actually mean in times of COVID-19 and, moreover, what does it look like from a media theoretical perspective? The project Geistervorlesung [Ghost Lectures] is a technology-related analysis of this unique moment where media and its technology have become indispensable for health, knowledge, and human social interaction. Based on Prof. Wolfgang Ernst's Summer Lecture 2020 at the department for musicology and media studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin, David has been creating a multimedia publication together with Thomas Fecker which is disguised in the form of an ordinary paper book. By using, for instance, artificial intelligence for audio transcription and augmented reality as a media relevant experience, the media speaks for itself. Therefore, this project is only consumable with smart devices that understand such a language. In 2021, the project will be published at vwh Verlag (Glueckstadt).More
2020–2021
Inspired by M. Buehler's Amino Acid Synthesizers (2019) and John Clinton's Quadrille Melodist (1865), the DNA Based Music Machine is a conceptual piece, which was created within the context of the seminar "Music Machines from 1650 to 2019" by N. Bgraguinski in 2019. It shows that simply translating sheet music in amino acids is irrelevant and has nothing to do with composing music by or with Mother Nature. The idea is that by encoding every single DNA triplet with its own short music composition in the sense of Clinton's Melodist, proteins can be sonified. However, due to the encoding process, these melodies are actually human-made and, hence, arbitrary. Additionally, this project suggests that sheet music is not appropriated for composing music through nature because its symbolic quality--in the sense of Jacque Lacan--is too far away from the real body of music: the acoustics. Read me.