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Kata Kovács and Tom O’Doherty

Carried Bells

Carried Bells is a process-based work, in which sounds and images of a series of twenty ringing bells are recorded in an urban environment. These recordings are then carried on foot, in a repeating daily task, to a central installation, which adds one recording each day over the course of the presentation of the work.

Carried Bells harvests traces from the city — exploring acoustic phenomena, social history, and the potential of public space. The incrementally-accumulating installation that emerges allows these individual recordings of particular bells to accrete and combine in unpredictable ways. The work aims to bring the bells of the city out of the backgrounds of our attention, to recontextualise them, and to re-imagine them.

Details

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Carried Bells, as installed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019 (Photo: Hue Hale)
Carried Bells, as installed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019 (Photo: Hue Hale)
Detail from Carried Bells, as installed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019 (Photo: Hue Hale)
Carried Bells (Daily Walks) as projected
Carried Bells (Daily Walks) — video stills
Carried Bells (Daily Walks) — video stills
Carried Bells (daily walks photo series, as displayed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019)
Carried Bells, as installed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019 (Photo: Hue Hale)
Carried Bells, as installed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019 (Photo: Hue Hale)
Detail from Carried Bells, as installed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019 (Photo: Hue Hale)
Carried Bells (Daily Walks) as projected
Carried Bells (Daily Walks) — video stills
Carried Bells (Daily Walks) — video stills
Carried Bells (daily walks photo series, as displayed at Hošek Contemporary, October 2019)
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The initial presentation of Carried Bells was at Hošek Contemporary, Berlin, in October 2019. This is a unique space housed on a repurposed cargo barge in the river Spree, and the work was presented in this environment from October 5. to 25., 2019, growing and developing over the course of its presentation with the addition of sounds and images of one bell each day, gleaned from throughout the city of Berlin. The details of the daily task of walking and carrying that was undertaken are outlined below.

  • Reach out and fetch — exhibition text for Carried Bells by Josie Thaddeus-Johns, published by Textur magazine.
  • Carried Bells: An Introduction — text of artist talk about Carried Bells from August 2019.

Routes

The details of the twenty walks undertaken during the first presentation of Carried Bells are given below. A map view is also available (view via Google · view via Open Street Map).
Date: Location: Walk: Details:
Sat, 5. October, 2019 Berliner Dom, Mitte
Walk time: 15 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Three bells — the oldest cast in 1532 by Hinrik van Kampen.
Sun, 6. October, 2019 Bekenntniskirche, Treptow
Walk time: 1 hour 2 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Two bells, dating from the 1930s, in two separate towers, in a city church that is built into the terrace facade of the street.
Mon, 7. October, 2019 Johanneskirche, Zehlendorf
Walk time: 3 hours 40 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
The bell in the Johanneskirche is the oldest actively-used bell in Berlin, and is estimated to date to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century CE.
Tues, 8. October, 2019 St. Josef, Weißensee
Walk time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Three bells, cast in 1898, at the same time as the construction of the building.
Wed, 9. October, 2019 Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche, Schöneberg
Walk time: 1 hr 20 min
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
The bells are in a tower built in 1962, which replaced an earlier building destroyed in the second world war. It stands directly opposite the thirteenth-century building of the Dorfkirche Schöneberg.
Thu, 10. October, 2019 Dorfkirche Wittenau
Walk time: 2 hours 28 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
A peal of four bells, the earliest from 1484, the most recent from 1964.
Fri, 11. October, 2019 Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Prenzlauer Berg
Walk time: 33 mins
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Single bell, dating from 1898.
Sat, 12. October, 2019 St.-Adalbert-Kirche, Mitte
Walk time: 32 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Single bell dating from the early 1930s.
Sun, 13. October, 2019 St. Laurentius, Hansaviertel
Walk time: 1 hour 2 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Set of three bells, in open modernist tower.
Mon, 14. October, 2019 Dorfkirche Stralau, Alt-Stralau
Walk time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Three bells — two cast in 1850 by Glockengießerei Schilling, Apolda; one cast in 1545 by Andreas Kepfel.
Tue, 15. October, 2019 Dorfkirche Marzahn
Walk time: 2 hours 40 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Three bells, the oldest from 1660, cast in Berlin.
Wed, 16. October, 2019 Alte Pfarrkirche Lichtenberg
Walk time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Peal of three bells, the earliest from the mid-fifteenth century.
Thu, 17. October, 2019 Dorfkirche Buckow, Alt-Buckow
Walk time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Bells from mid-1300s.
Fri, 18. October, 2019 St.-Simeon-Kirche, Kreuzberg
Walk time: 25 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Peal of three bells from 1897, which had been at risk of being melted down during the second world war, but were ultimately spared.
Sat, 19. October, 2019 St. Aloysius, Wedding
Walk time: 1 hour 29 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Four bells, cast in 1958 from crucible steel by Bochumer Verein.
Sun, 20. October, 2019 Kapelle der Versöhnung, Mitte
Walk time: 42 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
The three bells at the Kapelle der Versöhnung (Chapel of Reconciliation) are from the 1890s, and were integrated into the modern chapel in 2000. They were previously installed in the Versöhnungskirche, which stood on the site before it was demolished in 1985.
Mon, 21. October, 2019 Maria Regina Martyrum, Charlottenburg-Nord
Walk time: 2 hours
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Peal of five bells, in a stark modernist tower built in the early 1960s.
Tue, 22. October, 2019 Genezarethkirche, Neukölln
Walk time: 1 hour 3 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Three bells, originally installed in 1904 in a belfry tower. The tower was demolished in 1947 on the orders of the American military in order to allow aircraft unimpeded access to Tempelhofer Feld, and a new smaller tower replaced it in 1955.
Wed, 23. October, 2019 St. Canisius, Charlottenberg
Walk time: 1 hr 50 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
A peal of four bells, cast in 1955 for the original church building that stood on the site. Incorporated into a newly-designed tower in 2002, after the previous enclosure was damaged by fire in 1995.
Thu, 24. October, 2019 Marienkirche, Mitte
Walk time: 15 minutes
Map links: OSM · Google · Apple
Two bells, the earliest cast in 1705, in an iconic twelfth-century building in the centre of Alexanderplatz.

Past news and updates about Carried Bells:

May 15, 2021
Carried Bells (Daily Walks) at Hošek Contemporary · Next week, our video Carried Bells (Daily Walks) will be live-streamed on the website of Hošek Contemporary. Carried... | More »
August 29, 2019
Carried Bells at Hošek Contemporary · Carried Bells, a new work, will be presented at Hošek Contemporary in Berlin from 5.–25. October,... | More »
August 23, 2019
Carried Bells: An Introduction · The text below is from an artist talk about Carried Bells given at Ponderosa, Stolzenhagen, Germany, in August 2019,... | More »