The Silence, 2022, Amie Siegel, double-screen 4K video installation

The Silence is a video installation featuring alternating projections, each performed and filmed in Swedish churches designed by the late architect Sigurd Lewerentz. Siegel considers the uncanny similarities between Lewerentz’s designs for each of the two churches’ unique graphic brickwork and the manufactured scores of player-piano music—paper rolls dotted with small, perforated absences—nuances of the ghostly “self-playing” music they generate.

Much like a vinyl album, each “side” of the dual video projection performs a musical score adapted from the patterned walls of the space. Arranged and scored for organ by Jeff Murcko, the compositions for The Silence hinge on the visual mapping and transliteration of absences in the distinct brickwork of the interior walls as musical elements. Murcko’s systemized approach assigned tones, key and time signatures, transcribing sheerly architectural elements into music. The scores were performed on site during filming, on Lewerentz-designed organs, by each congregation’s organist, Lina Wijk Furali (Klippan), and Eva Karpe (Stockholm).

Ultimately, The Silence is a singular exploration of larger existential questions—the presence and absence, and the sound and silence that often guide or contravene spiritual life—concerns that imbue ‘The Church’ as an architectural space wherein the ephemeral takes shape.

Exhibited: ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Stockholm, Sweden