Inspection II is a seven-channel sound performance by composer Florian Hecker, using computer-generated sound and synthetic voice, with libretto by Robin Mackay in the form of a dialogue between a psychoanalyst and his patient.

Hecker reprocesses his own work here. Original sounds are algorithmically reconstructed, or resynthesized, where “inspection” refers to a process of looking inside, to analyze and discover. Starting out as a dialogical machine-machine interplay, the sound disintegrates from recognizable speech to more and more abstract sounds masking each other, concluding in noise with no signal.

Florian Hecker (b.1975, Augsburg, Germany) uses synthetic sounds and the listener’s auditory process to create acoustic spaces of experience. His computer-generated compositions dramatize psychoacoustics as well as objective-physical stimuli and their individual, psychic and physical impacts.

Selected solo exhibitions and performances: Synopsis, Tramway, Glasgow (2017); Formulations, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2016); Formulations, Culturgest, Porto; Künstlerhaus Graz; Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2015); Sadie Coles HQ, London; Galerie Neu, Berlin; Articulação, Lumiar Cité, Lisbon; documenta 13, Kassel; Nouveau Festival, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2012). His collaboration with Reza Negarestani, A Script for Machine Synthesis, was presented at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and at Maison de la Radio, Paris (both in 2015); Formulation (FLV Project) was presented at the opening exhibition of Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2014).

He has an extensive discography, including A Script for Machine Synthesis (Editions Mego); Articulação Sintetico (Editions Mego); Hecker Leckey Sound Voice Chimera (PAN); Articulação (Editions Mego); Chimerization (Editions Mego); Speculative Solution (Editions Mego); and Acid in the Style of David Tudor (Editions Mego).

Hecker last performed at Lampo in April 2011, when he presented the U.S. premiere of Speculative Solution—his music exploring philosopher Quentin Meillassoux’s concept of hyperchaos. In October 2006 he performed a six-channel computer work with material that later became Acid in the Style of David Tudor. In November 2002 Hecker and Yasunao Tone premiered Palimpsest at Lampo, in the duo’s first U.S. appearance. Hecker also played his solo work Stocha Acid Vlook.

Presented in partnership with the Poetry Foundation; organized in cooperation with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Department of Sound