For centuries and up until 2006, coins, including the Euro, were minted in the Alte Münze [Old Mint]. The sound installation, 
in which various coins from different countries are scanned by a metal detector throughout the room, directly penetrates physical matter. The mobile detector translates metals and alloys into 99 synthetic tones and, by means of an error rate cover-
ing only a few pitches, creates an impression of permanent variance within the loop. At the same time, site specific concealed architectural structures are also scanned. And visitors carrying metal on them, who come close to the scanner, also flow into the sound composition.
Comprehensive scanning, intercepting, and transforming of data is a common image of dystopian visions of the future: the monitored individual; the omniscient, controlling machine power that begins already with the scan at the airport.
The transformation of the data into audible sound, an ephemeral composition, reveals the immediacy of the process. 
In contrast to a database, the information is deliberately not saved; the focus being 
on potential space for real-time transmission. The abstractness of a currency turns into abstract sound, thereby acquiring a new value and referring to the suppression of physical and anonymous methods of payment in favor of a money transfer that can be precisely traced and identified in the virtual data room.

Torben Laib (NOR)
studied sculpture at the Muthesius Kunsthochschule in Kiel and sound art at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig. With his artistic works, he reacts to situations, stories, and places under tonal and spatial aspects.
www.torbenlaib.de