A sound installation for the (hu)man peeing

In the spring of 2008, I and three of my fellow students developed the concept Urinal Band / Fountain Orchestra which is a sound installation located at a urinal. It was first installed in the men’s restroom at Musikhuset Aarhus for Spot Festival in 2008. Later the ‘band’ went on tour visiting Skanderborg Festival (Smukfest) in 2009 and 2010.

With the band as a metaphor, each urinal guest becomes a band member and each urinal an instrument (eg. Drums, bass, vocals etc.) . Our intent with the installation was, in a humorous way, to challenge the many unwritten conventions that exist in public places - in this particular case, the urinal. We did this by sonifying human relations in this place where every relationship is most often avoided.

Unfortunately the installation was mainly accessible to the male sex but some women did manage to find their way in to the men’s room, thus challenging yet another rule of this public space.

My three accomplices were:
Esben Nørskov Andersen
Mads Stenøj Andresen
Brian Hauge Hansen

This is a primitive mock-up video we made while developing the concept:


The image below is a link to the report we wrote on the installation:

Link to download project paper