1983
Time Piece, Archetype, 1983

IMG0060 - Max Neuhaus Drawing
Projection of sculpture court with sound system,
Time Piece, Archetype, 1983 - Ink and colored pencil on paper - 83 x 151 cm. Collection: The Estate of Max Neuhaus
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- a piece he would later title Time Piece “Archetype-

'The first large scale realization of this idea was at the Whitney Museum in New York in its sculpture garden in 1983.  Although it was large scale, it was still a model.  It was in a museum context, and I first decided to try the idea by not adding a sound but recoloring sound that was already there and very, very gradually over a period of ten minutes introducing the recoloration of the live sound into the place and at one instant pulling away the coloration and exposing the sound again in a new way.' 

Max Neuhaus, Berlin / 26 May 1995

Time Piece ‘Archetype’ at the 1983 Whitney Biennial, installed in the sunken sculpture garden in front of the museum. The piece hinged on the prevailing sounds coming from Madison Avenue, which Neuhaus piped into the garden through a device that slightly altered their timbre, so that the real time acoustic events doubled a bit shifted and minutely delayed. The added relay began inaudibly and increased very gradually over twenty minutes until it matched the volume intensity of actual street sounds. At that moment, the relay suddenly ceased. Inaudibly, a new cycle recommenced, yet for most hearers it was the cycle’s cessation that first made them aware of the building electronic reflections. As Carter Ratcliff described, “With half one’s aural environment deleted…the site seems astonishingly clear. Din no longer sounds like mere din, but a rich aural texture instead.