** 2022 Stock ** The sound of a gunshot doesn’t usually lead to quietude, while the tragedy associated with the sound seems to demand this. The bang excludes all surrounding factors and attracts all the attention. In a social way the bang is more of an implosion than an explosion. In this is project, Justin Bennett maps space by the sounds generated though shotgun blasts. A gunshot is extremely banal. The bang that is released when pulling the trigger is, in its explosivity, a direct metaphor for the lack of peace that the person pulling the trigger possesses. The banality of the bang of a gunshot makes the bang so emotionally charged. The banality of the bang is one and the same as the fact that ‘there is something wrong’. When the bang sounds, the listener knows that at the place where the bang comes from, something sinister is going on. Hearing the shot releases strong feelings among people; feelings of fear and distrust, maybe a chemical warning of testosterone is shrieking through the listeners’ body, possibly resulting in the need to flee or the need to contend strongly.

The sound of a gunshot doesn’t usually lead to quietude, while the tragedy associated with the sound seems to demand this. The bang excludes all surrounding factors and attracts all the attention. In a social way the bang is more of an implosion than an explosion. However, it’s also possible to turn this chain of consequences of the sound of a gunshot around. Justin Bennett has used the bang as an explosion, by approaching its resonance only as a resonance. The shot then also functions as a kind of sonar. With the shot as sonar he maps a space, by giving visual insight into the sound waves. By working with a starting pistol and recording equipment in specific spaces, Justin is able to draw different maps. Next to these drawings, that purely place the shot in its context as a fact, Justin also presents the sound of the shot in a way that the bang indeed leads to quietude. By presenting the shots in a regular rhythm, they sound very minimalistic in one’s ears. The sound also takes you to an imaginary space, because the listener realizes that the space for example is wider, higher or more or less constructed as a result of the audible resonance and the different sounds of each bang.

The sound becomes an object of quiet attention and can then be approached with some distance. In three spaces of the building in Hamburg Justin will create a sound and light installation, based on his approach to a gunshot. The audience will be taken along in an experience that in the beginning could frighten, but eventually will charm and quieten the mind. With this piece of work the current culture of fear will be brought back to its actual dimensions. Our abdomen will be parried in favour of our mental reach. Sound and vision transpose a physical space and illustrate an imaginary space. - Freek Lomme